Jack Sparrow dropped to one knee beside her.
Crocodile lay half-buried where she had fallen, her black coat torn, sand clinging to her like a shroud. The morning sun crept higher, painting the dunes gold and cruelly beautiful. Jack's sword slipped from his fingers and embedded itself tip-first into the sand.
His arm screamed.
This was deeper, heavier, like something inside him was unraveling thread by thread. He clenched his jaw, sucked in air that burned his throat, and let out a weak, breathless laugh.
"Hah…"
It was absurd. Completely absurd.
He liked her.
Not in a let's-have-a-drink sort of way—well, maybe a little—but in the way one respected a storm after surviving it. Crocodile had tried to kill him without hesitation, without theatrics, without mercy. Honest violence. Clean intent.
Jack respected that.
He didn't like those people who came to kill him and provided a justification. I mean, if you are going to kill me why tell me the reason? So that I can forgive you and let me be killed?
Stupid.
He pushed himself upright with effort, swaying. The desert tilted unpleasantly. He blinked hard until the horizon stopped sliding.
Then he heard it.
Voices.
Human voices.
Jack froze.
For a heartbeat, relief surged through him so powerfully it nearly knocked him flat. Civilization. Water. Shade. Maybe a doctor who wasn't a terrifying hundred-year-old witch.
"Yes!" he croaked, then louder, "Yes—HEY!"
He staggered forward, dragging his feet up the slope of a dune. Each step sent fresh agony through his arm, his shoulder, his spine. He reached the crest and squinted into the distance.
A group of figures stood there.
People.
Uniformed.
His smile froze.
"…Oh," Jack muttered.
They weren't travelers. They weren't merchants. They weren't lost fools like him. They were guards.
Desert-colored cloaks. Spears. The insignia of Alabasta glinting faintly on their armor.
For one dangerous second, Jack considered pretending to collapse dramatically and hope for mercy.
Then one of them pointed.
"Pirate!"
Jack's stomach dropped.
"He must be one of them! Catch him!"
A spear whistled through the air.
Jack yelped and threw himself sideways, the weapon embedding itself in the sand where his chest had been a moment earlier.
"Nope!" he shouted reflexively, scrambling up. "Wrong man! Terrible misunderstanding!"
They charged.
Jack turned and ran.
If what he was doing could be called running.
His boots sank with every step. His lungs felt like they were scraping themselves raw. His vision narrowed, pulsing at the edges. Every movement sent lightning through his arm.
He made it maybe ten steps before reality caught up with him.
He was in no condition to fight.
He glanced over his shoulder as he ran—and saw her.
Crocodile lay exactly where he had left her, unconscious, defenseless, the desert already beginning to reclaim her.
Jack slowed.
His breath hitched.
"Damn it," he muttered.
He skidded to a stop.
The guards were still coming. Shouting. Closing in.
Jack looked at her again.
He swore under his breath.
"Oh, this is a terrible idea."
He turned back.
The desert protested every step as he reached her, bent, and hooked an arm under her shoulders. She was heavier than she looked—solid, real. He grunted, nearly collapsing as he hauled her upright.
Sand slid off her coat as he shifted her weight across his shoulders.
"There," he rasped. "See? Chivalry."
She did not respond.
Jack staggered forward, half-running, half-limping, her weight dragging him down with every step. The guards' shouts grew louder for a moment—
Then fainter.
Then gone.
Jack did not know how long he ran.
Time dissolved into heat, pain, and breath. His thoughts scattered. The world reduced itself to forward motion and stubborn refusal to fall.
When he finally slowed, it wasn't because he chose to.
It was because his legs stopped listening.
He stumbled out of the dunes and onto harder ground. Ahead—mercifully, impossibly—stood buildings.
A village.
Low stone houses. Worn paths. Shade.
Jack laughed hoarsely.
"Oh thank the seas," he breathed. "You're real. You're definitely real."
Or… were they?
He squinted.
No shimmering. No wavering air.
Not a mirage.
His relief was short-lived.
His knees buckled.
He pitched forward, Crocodile sliding off his shoulders and hitting the ground with a dull thud, rolling once like an abandoned sack of grain.
Jack hit the sand beside her.
"Not now," he muttered weakly. "Please… not now…"
His eyelids drooped.
Sleep crept in like a tide, warm and heavy and irresistible. He tried to fight it, but his body no longer cared what he wanted.
The world dimmed.
Footsteps crunched nearby.
Jack's eyes snapped open.
Someone stood in front of him.
Tall. Still. Familiar in a way that cut through the fog instantly.
Jack squinted up at the silhouette, a crooked smile tugging at his lips despite everything.
"…Didn't know you had a Devil Fruit," he murmured. "Augur."
The figure did not move.
Then, slowly, Van Augur stepped fully into the light of the rising sun.
Rifle slung over his shoulder. Coat dusty. Eyes sharp as ever.
Jack let out a weak, breathless chuckle.
"Ah. Good. Thought I was hallucinating again."
Augur looked down at him, then at the unconscious woman beside him.
"…You really don't know how to stay out of trouble," he said quietly.
Jack smiled, eyes finally closing.
"Captain's privilege," he murmured.