Fic: Jack O'Bedlam (Chapter One)
Title: Jack o’ Bedlam
Author: Tiamary
Pairing/characters: J/E
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Two months after her one day with Will, Elizabeth finds Jack who is suffering from post-traumatic psychosis.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Warnings: Mental illness, Sparrabeth, salty language
Author's notes: (optional) PoTCfest challenge, someone finds Jack talking to himself post-Locker and is worried.
Prologue:
For to find my Tom O’Bedlam
10,000 years I’d travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
For to save her shoes from gravel
Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonnie
For they all go bare and they live by the air
And they want no drink nor money -- Anonymous, circa 1600
Chapter One
It was curiosity that led Elizabeth to check out Nassau Port’s most notorious tavern and she did so in men’s clothes, as usual. She liked Nassau. She wasn’t recognized by many here as nearly all pirates of her acquaintance were in Jamaica or Haiti. She did not have to worry about the Pirate King of the most recent Gathering of the Brethren being challenged when she was just trying to relax.
She approached the bar and requested ale and as she waited for it, she heard men talking.
“I say we put the blighter in the madhouse once and for all.”
“Have some respect. The man is a legend.”
“’Tis for his own good, mate, ‘smuch as ours.”
“So say you. If he wants to go to the madhouse he can find it himself.”
“Got a lunatic here, boys?” Elizabeth asked.
“Mind yer business, laddie.”
“Beg to differ. If he’s dangerous, seems it’s everybody’s business.”
“Harmless he is. Just mutters to himself all day long.”
“He ain’t harmless, he’s Captain Jack Sparrow.”
“Oh, come on. Sparrow’s too important a man to sit in this dive talking to hisself. He’d be too busy pillaging and plundering.”
“Not if he’s mad.”
“Sparrow’s always been mad. Ain’t kept him muttering around a pub before, now has it, or he wouldn’t have had time to defeat the East Indian Trading Company.”
"I’m tellin’ you, it’s Jack Sparrow.”
“You wish it were Jack Sparrow. You’ve a hard-on for him.”
“Why you…”
“Oi. Where’s the lad wanted ale?” said the barkeep. When there was no answer, he grunted in disgust. So much for his tip.