Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, none of Pirates of the Caribbean is mine (it belongs to Disney). I only borrowed the concept and characters to have fun (but gain no profit) writing this story, which is mine. The lines I've used from the song 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again' also aren't mine. The song is from The Phantom of the Opera (which isn't mine) and the lyrics are by Charles Hart (additional lyrics: Richard Stilgoe). Phew! I think that covers everything.

Archive: If you're not FanFiction, then please ask first via submitting a review (leave your email address & I'll get back to you - and most probably say "Aye!").

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Author's Note: Tissues at the ready!

Pairing: Jack/Anamaria

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Pirates of the Caribbean:

Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again

By

Starzangel

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Wishing you were
somehow here again. . .
wishing you were
somehow near. . .

Wishing I could
hear your voice again. . .
knowing that I
never would. . .

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Part One: Feel My Heart Breaking

Anamaria had never felt so lost before in her life.

She had experienced thirty-two years that had been far from easy sailing, but never had her heart ached, bleed, like it did now. She wasn't sure how she could still be alive. Perhaps she wasn't, for everything seemed so distant. Everything except the pain.

Her eyes were red, raw and swollen, yet still tears fell. She couldn't stop them and didn't care to try. It didn't matter if the men saw her crying, it didn't matter if the whole damn world saw. Nothing mattered anymore.

She might as well be dead too, for she could never live again. Her lungs continued to draw in and push out air, but she didn't breathe. Hell on Earth had engulfed her and would never let her go.

The sun was sliding below the waves and the sky was darkening, surprising Anamaria with the realisation that so little time had actually passed. It seemed to her as though a century had gone by since it had been morning and she was blissfully unaware that he, the man she loved with her entire being, would be cruelly taken from her mere hours later.

She was no longer the same person as she had been then. Now she was empty, a deep void in her aching heart. The world she had known before wasn't hers anymore. With its centre gone, it did not revolve the same. What had been was lost forever with him.

Anamaria didn't want to move in time with a different world, and so, she drifted, out of sync with everyone else, surrounded by her despair. Her crying eyes stared into the blackening sea, whose arms now held him instead of hers.

Earlier she had dived into the water, searching until her lungs burned and her head span. She had gasped for air and then gone under again, repeatedly, until she'd been pulled out and into a boat, barely conscious. They had searched the nearby islet too, over and over, until it started to grow dark.

Then it had been time to accept that the hunt was pointless. The man who had seemed immortal had been claimed by Davy Jones' locker and was not coming back.

They turned their rudder to the waters that took him. But though the ship moved on, Anamaria did not. She stood at the Black Pearl's stern, looking back and remembering. Clinging to her bittersweet memories of those last few moments of the man she loved.

.

Together the two of them had awoken and gone up on deck to find the Pearl and the surrounding waters to be shrouded in slowly drifting, thick fog. The uneven mists held a hundred shadows, making it near impossible to tell what really was out there.

He had been quiet with unease, sensing the impending trouble.

"Devils lie hidden in these cursed airs. . ." Gibbs muttered, as if sharing grave wisdom.

He merely nodded and took over the helm.

Then it had all happened so uncontrollably fast.

Two pirate ships had appeared, one on either side of the Black Pearl, seemingly from nowhere. Their names blazed through the fog in red-painted words on black plaques. Hell's Talon to port and Rising Doom on the starboard side.

"Cheerful lot, eh?"

He had ignored his bosun, and from his serious expression Anamaria knew he recognised at least one of the ships. It also told her that this was not good news. A warning shot from the Hell's Talon fired over the Pearl's bow confirmed this.

Commodore Dareign had then introduced himself and Captain Redwaine of his other ship, the Rising Doom. The Black Pearl was told to surrender or be destroyed.

The crew of the Black Pearl looked to their captain, who held the ship's wheel in his hands, absently caressing the wood.

"Commodore Dareign, better known as El Gancho," he said, quietly, turning to Anamaria. "The Hook."

He had gently taken her hand and placed it on the wheel, then moved away from the helm to address the whole crew.

"I'm going over," he stated, gesturing loosely towards the Hell's Talon.

The crew tried to protest at their captain's decision, which he declared as if he were about to join Commodore Dareign for afternoon tea.

However, he cut them off with a raised palm and frank words. "It's me he wants. Not the ship or her hold."

Anamaria saw the dark seriousness held by his eyes and didn't try to stop him.

If she had known what she did now, things would have been different. She would have stopped him, and allowed the Pearl to be blown out of the water before letting him go near that bastard! Yet, weep as she may, the past could not be changed.

He had yelled across his proposition, then swung over on a rope and disappeared into the deck cabin with Dareign, The Hook. Moments later a deep boom sounded from underwater and most of the Hell's Talon's stern blasted out into the sea as wreckage.

As the Hell's Talon began to sink, Captain Redwaine and the Rising Doom sped away without a word. Leaving the Black Pearl's crew no distraction from the horrific spectacle played out on the tilted deck of the Hell's Talon.

Their captain and Dareign stumbled out of the deck cabin, swords drawn. They faced each other and steel rang against steel.

The groaning deck was soon deserted as the crew fled, and the rapid sinking of the ship forced the two remaining pirates, locked in battle, up to the tilted bow.

He was a great swordsman, but there were those that could beat him in a fair game and with most of the ship underwater there wasn't much at his despoil to 'cheat' with.

They fought precariously balanced first along the side-rail and then on the figurehead in the grotesque shape of a creature whose features were a merging of those of a woman and a ferocious raven.

He slipped on the uneven surface of the wooden creature's face. Dareign's brawny right arm caught his neck in a strangling hold. Anamaria could only watch helplessly. Suddenly, she saw the meaning behind the name El Gancho, The Hook.

A sharp, metal hook replaced the man's missing left hand. It glinted in the few rays of light managing to get through the clearing fog. El Gancho swung his left arm back in an arc. Then the hook seared forward through the air.

It sunk into the wrist of the pirate captain's raised sword-hand.

Anamaria's chest constricted, as she heard the scream of agony escape her lover's lips. His sword clattered against the sloping figurehead and fell into the sea with a final splash.

He wavered, almost falling after his sword. Dareign raised his hook for the killing blow. Again metal caught the light.

At the last second, he found the strength to twist away. The intended coup de grâce became a graze across the chest.

In his favouring of his hook, Dareign was neglecting his sword and his foe took the opportune moment to wrench said cutlass from the pirate's grasp with his left hand. Then drove the weapon through the surprised and stumbling man's chest, straight into his heart. A splash sounded as Dareign fell backwards into the sea, and the victorious pirate captain stood alone above the waves.

It was then that a strange lurching sound came from underwater. Time froze for a fraction of a moment.

She could see him now, balanced on that ghastly figurehead with his red bandanna soaked with sweat and the end of his red and white sash wet with seawater. His glinting trinkets came to rest against their backdrop of braids, dreadlocks and loose strands of hair. The slit in his bloodstained white shirt revealed the bleeding wound across his chest, which heaved with the effort to catch his breath. He held his limp right arm against his stomach, cradling his wrist with his other hand. Droplets of blood dripped from between his fingers and fell through the misty air to become lost in the waiting waters. His charcoal-lined eyes, the colour of the dark chocolate they'd tasted in Africa, met hers across the distance between them.

Then the events continued to play on at their real, terribly fast pace, and what little remained of the Hell's Talon sharply disappeared. He tried to jump clear. But he was swallowed by the swell of the water and taken down with the ship.

The water gradually stilled above the sunken galleon, the surface never to be broken by a pirate captain gasping for air. He was gone.

.

Anamaria could taste the salt of her tears on her lips and feel the cool night wind pull back her dark hair and pass through her shirt to her trembling shoulders, but she rejected any connection with these things. Life meant nothing but pain to her now.

There was no escaping it.

There was no changing it.

.

Captain Jack Sparrow was dead.

To be continued. . .