Sighing defeatedly, Bootstrap looked away from Jack. "I bloody give up, Jack," he muttered. "Nothin' I say is goin' to convince ye; I know ye well enough to know that. Within twenty-four hours, ye'll start to become one o' us. If that doesn't prove it to ye, nothin' will. Now come on. I still have to show ye around. There'll be the devil t' pay if Jones is angry with either o' us."

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Bootstrap laughed humorlessly, pausing slightly as he glanced over his shoulder at Jack. "My point exactly."

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((Frodo, seein' as the original people ye were going to meet up with have seemingly disappeared, perhaps we can all pick up the slack and play someone in that group as well? I'm not volunteering anyone else, of course, but I personally have no problem with covering one of the people in the longboat))

As if sensing Jack's thoughts, Bootstrap abruptly stopped again, but didn't turn around. "Ten years is a long time, Jack," he said in a weary voice. "Yer not exactly the innocent, happy-go-lucky lad I remember, either. People change in a decade." And it was the truth. Time had taken its toll on William Turner. In the past decade alone, Bootstrap had abandoned his family, engaged in mutiny against his best friend, thought said best friend to be dead, gotten cursed, spent who-knows-how-long at the bottom of the ocean with thousand of pounds of water pressure crushing down on him every second with no end in sight, gotten cursed again, become a half-human slave of Davy Jones who was daily losing more of himself -both mentally and physically-, thought his son to be dead, found out that his best friend was alive but owed Jones the same debt he did, been forced to whip his own son, lost his soul for all of eternity, thought his best friend and his son to be dead again, and saved his son at the cost of his best friend spending an eternity of servitude alongside him. And yet, as much as the memories of each of those events plagued him, he wouldn't trade anything for them. Yes, they bore down on him daily, constricting him until he couldn't breath, crushing down on him more than the weight of the waters ever had... but they were his, and currently they were the only thing separating him from his crewmates. At least he had memories of what it was like to be human, some remnant of his old self. Without those memories, he had nothing... And there was nothing he feared more. "C'mon," he said suddenly, realizing that he had fallen silent. He turned from his current course and headed down a creaking flight of stairs. "There is one room on this acursed ship ye might like." Grabbing a lantern off of a hook and lighting it, Bill led Jack through the otherwise pitch-black hold until they came to a series of shelves. He motioned for Jack to stay put and disappeared, only to reappear moments later with two barnacle-encrusted bottles. Handing one of them to the younger pirate, he raised his in a toast. "Drink up."

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Taking a generous swig of his own, Bootstrap sighed and sat down on one of the taller barrels. The two drank without speaking for some time, awkward silence hanging heavily in the air. As he sat there, a small smile crept onto Bootstrap's face, as though he'd just thought of a small, private joke. "I'm vaguely reminded o' that time on the Empress," he commented quietly between drinks. "When we 'ad to stow away in those rum barrels, an' someone got the notion that it'd be a waste of perfectly good alcohol to simply pour it out into th' harbour..."

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"Aye, if ye fancy dealin' with hangover the next day while trapped in a barrel on stormy seas," Bootstrap replied casually, wincing as he recalled that particular detail of their journey. Taking another swig from the bottle, he shook his head. "Took me months to get the smell out, an' I still haven't forgotten it." A small laugh escaped his lips, the first genuine laugh he'd had for almost a full decade. It felt good.

Bootstrap took another drink, still smiling slightly to himself. As little as he cared for the circumstances, he was glad to have Jack back with him. If he ignored the constant swaying of the ship, the putrid decaying smell that permeated the air, and the pesky little fact that he had a starfish growing on the side of his face and coral formations sprouting from his back, he could almost pretend that they were back in Faithful Bride celebrating a successful raid, and that the past ten years had never happened. Almost.

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