Title: Divided
Disclaimers: I don't own any pirate/ship and I don't wish to.
Genre: angst/friendship/romance

Rating: have to go for NC17 because of some adult concepts, no details though.
Summary/Set: Jack's still hearing voices, aftereffects of the locker. Starts where we left Jack at the end of AWE.

Pairing: Jack/hat, eventual Jack/Barbossa friendship, Sparrabeth a lot later.

Jack woke up to someone kicking him in the side. He jumped, making the little boat shake and himself almost topple out the dinghy. He looked around drunkenly. Empty bottles of rum at the bottom on the dory, his flag flying high, but the canvas hardly moving in the absence of much wind, the sun high up in the sky blinding him, the rest, water everywhere all around. Not a soul anywhere, the monotony of the waves crushing onto the side of the boat was only broken by the shuffling sounds made by a gannet, that has chosen his flagpole to relieve itself at. He spat at the sight, or was it his hangover making him do so?

"Hoay! Trim the boat!"

Jack looked up drunkenly into the blaring sunshine, shielding his eyes to see better. At the other end of the modest vessel there was another Jack standing at the rim of the boat, yet he didn't seem to be unbalancing the vessel, it was as if he didn't have any weight at all. He was wearing his captain's attire, complete with a hat on the wrong way round on his head. Of course. Now that he was alone, the other Jacks were likely to come back to haunt him, they did appear every time he was by himself for a longer time. He hoped they weren't going to come anymore, it has been a long time since the last time he was alone since he shared his cabin with Barbossa on the journey to Tortuga, the rest of his time he spent on the deck, with Gibbs or with the wenches.

"Smartly now! Even keel!" The Jack towering above him ordered.

Drunken Jack blinked. He had to admit commandeering Jack was right. If he kept hovering at the side of the boat on one leg as he was doing, he'd either plunge into the water and end up shark bait, or he'll top the boat over and he'll end up shark bait anyway. As repulsive as it seemed for him to approach his alterego, he inched towards the mast.

"Bravo!" He hailed his seemingly not drunk counterpart. Maybe it was just as well it was the wrongly hatted Jack who was the one acting as if he was the captain. "Ye successfully saved us from feeding the fish." But somebody else captaining the ship was not right, was it? A duplicate, against the real deal! Better get his counterpart drunk too, maybe he'd have a better chance? He started rummaging through the empty bottles and found one with the quarter of the contents still in, "ye want some slackening braces, manning yards, dousing sails, go fe it mate, but why without rum, Jackie?"

His replica jumped down next to him, his face a mere inch from his, "what say ye be it proper to talk to yer superior like that! It's Captain Sparrow to ye, filthy..." He crunched his nose and made a shooing away gesture, "...salientian!" However, his other hand moved to take the bottle of rum out of Jack's hands.

Jack rolled his eyes, a little dazed, then lost equilibrium again. That was his line! "Hey!" He opposed as the imaginary Captain Sparrow grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet.

"Eyes in the boat! Bale!" The one who seemed to be in command shouted and Jack had to admit that he was right again. Perhaps it wasn't an emergency, cause the pool of water at the bottom of the boat had been sloshing about for a while enough to warm up and there was no leak apparent, but it was best getting rid of the excess water that perhaps the waves caused at some point while he was asleep. Still swaying drunkenly he emptied his bucket quite a few times before he saw fit to change the course of action.

With a gallant smile he straightened up, "belay that bailing! That's well." A little more sober now, he proclaimed with bravado against what was still the aftereffects of Davy Jones' doing. If he could just kill all his alteregos, they wouldn't come back. The replica of himself with two left hands that he stabbed in the locker didn't come again to trouble him since. "I'm the captain of this ship and I commandeer it by myself!" He grinned, glad to have it at length off his chest. "And it be the captain that gives orders," he slurred.

"Where be yer hat than, ei?" The imaginary Jack challenged.

The real Jack looked around. His hat was nowhere to be seen. He'd used it as a pillow against the side of the dory when laying down to sleep, which means it must've dropped into the water at some point. "Ready about!" He wanted to uncleat the jib to begin turning. Surely he couldn't complete for captaincy without his hat, so he released the windward jib sheet.

"That hat," the imaginary Jack stroked his own, totally oblivious to his distress. "I wonder what people'd think if they knew why that hat be so important to ye. I wonder if I should tell Lizzie what ye use it fe on yer lonely nights in between ports."

Jack jumped, seething with anger, "just ye never mind tellin a damn thing. She don't need to..." He brought an arm up to break the impact, but it was too late. He hissed and was knocked backwards, realizing he has forgotten to duck under the boom as the boat turned into the wind. "Uuhhhhh..." He tried to sit up woozily, but all his head was able to do was to sway around. "Shhsheet the jibh!" He tried to suggest to the other Jack, but that just sat down, sipping his rum without a care in the world. Now they were floating about even more aimless than before.

"Proper. The tiller be neither proper, nor suitable, sir. It is not acceptable nor adequate. It is an obvious fact and abomination." Criticized him another Jack with his torso bare, the one he thought he finished off in the locker. Proving he still very much existed in the folds of his mind as well, he sheeted in the jib and centered the tiller in the worst way possible, on true form.

Jack didn't know why the boat didn't sink with a dozen Jacks on it, but he blamed the illusion on his injured head and rolled to the side. He'll have to wait awhile, unmoving, before he could take control of the boat.

Tbc