Missing Scene, At World's End

This takes place near the end of the third Pirates movie, just after the rather interesting impromptu wedding ceremony conducted by one Captain Barbosa. Will centric. I like cannon pairings; live with it.


There was an instant--less than a beat of the heart held under threat of Jack Sparrow's broken blade--when Will knew--knew--that Davy Jones was not just going to let the 'bond of love' between himself and his new wife stand.

Wife. Elizabeth was his wife--the thought gave him a thrill of pleasure despite the situation, but that thrill was brief and soon swallowed by fearful horror.

Jones knew that Jack was going to kill him and did not intend to allow the new Turner couple the happiness he'd been denied. Will's immediate thought was that the once-man would kill Elizabeth… and he wasn't in a good position to be able to stop it.

The sword in Jones' mostly human hand was the one he'd poured his soul into making before he'd first met Jack. The thought of his own work killing the only woman he'd ever loved was too terrible to even imagine, but the unwanted image flashed through his mind nonetheless.

So it came as something of a surprise when, instead of pivoting and taking a step to strike at the still-stunned Pirate King, the Captain of the Flying Dutchman spun and stabbed down in a vicious, angled thrust.

The breath was driven from his lungs at the impact and he found himself staring into the snarling face of Davy Jones, the tentacles that formed the vindictive Captain's beard coiling angrily.

It didn't hurt and he wasn't entirely sure what had happened, his gaze sliding down from the inhuman visage to the hand and claw braced against the sword's hilt, then further. So. He had been stabbed.

His first thought was relief--Elizabeth was safe. His vision blurred slightly as he focused in on Jack, who was standing as though paralyzed with Jones' heart still in hand, then Elizabeth was screaming his name, there beside him, begging him to stay with her.

He tried to take a breath, and that's when the pain finally hit. He heard his father's roar of rage as gray started to creep across his vision, felt the shudder of steel with each half-breath he gasped, with each quick, shallow heartbeat.

It hurt.

But by the time he realized someone was wrapping his hand around a hilt of some sort the pain was… not fading, precisely, but growing distant. Everything was growing distant.

And he felt his hand drop, pulled by the weight of whatever he'd been given to hold, meeting something that resisted only slightly before he lost his grip on lacquered wood.

"The Dutchman must have a captain," flickered across his fading consciousness as he gave up on breathing, leaving him idly wondering whether he'd really heard the words at all.

A shadow crossed before him, but he couldn't see what caused it until it knelt before him, and then just barely. His father--but where was Elizabeth?

He could hear her screaming for him, but couldn't react, and saw the dull glint of light off metal in his father's hand.

The sword was yanked from his chest, pain rousing him from his half-conscious state just in time to realize his father was about to--

His muscles spasmed in protest, this new agony putting the pain of a sword through the lung to shame, and he would have screamed if he'd been able to draw breath.

Rational thought left him and there was nothing but the pain as his father tore a brutal path through flesh and bone, wrenching open his ribcage with the aid of another crewmember in order to cut out his still-beating heart.

The blinding agony faded to something bearable as cool hands pressed the edges of the gash closed after the hasty operation, easing further, though not completely, as he lay still.

After a few more moments, Will could breathe again and opened his eyes.

"The Flying Dutchman is yours to command, Captain," 'Bootstrap' Bill Turner informed, not meeting his son's eyes.

Will climbed to his feet and looked around, wondering how it was that he was still breathing while underwater. Then again, it wasn't the first time he'd been subjected to that particular oddity while aboard the Dutchman.

Elizabeth! All else could wait. Right now, they had a fleet to stop.


A bit ramble-y, but really. Near-death experiences and/or massive blood loss tend to leave one a bit confused. One's mind tends to latch on to random little details and follow them in odd directions in an attempt to preserve whatever sanity one might have left. Then one remembers what it is that's going on and sets out to take care of it, depending on the importance one's mind assigns to the task.

I'd assume that massive blood loss, near death experience, and having one's heart literally cut out of one's chest while aboard a cursed, supernatural vessel would probably do the same.

One more thing--no, two. One, I own nothing but my imagination. Two, I did not write this the way I write my longer stories, just typed it directly to the more-or-less otherwise no-savey the typed stories computer. This means that I can get around the uploading issue with oneshots, but not multi-chapters. Don't ask, not my computer, I don't make the rules.