Thanks to: BelleWalker for the beta, you rock! To Kacee for always being there, and to Mel! I really missed you a lot gals! And thanks to everybody else who helped me go on with writing this fandom.

A/N: Well, here it is, my first Pirates of the Caribbean fic, I hope you all enjoy it. I'll probably won't be very fast with uploading since I start with college next week. My writing time will be restricted to the weekends, please bear with me through it all and keep having faith, cause I will finish this!

Prologue

They sat in Tia Dalma's swamp hut, each one processing that day's events in their own way. Their faces exhibited sorrow, and in Will's case something else unidentifiable.

Tia Dalma had brought them all a drink, a small offering 'against the cold and the sorrow'. Maybe they could try to forget about it all for even just one moment.

But they couldn't, for Gibbs spoke up to make a toast to their lost Captain. "Aye. And already the world seems a little less bright. He fooled us all, right to the end. But I guess that honest streak finally won out." He raised his cup. "To Jack Sparrow!"

"Never another like Captain Jack," Ragetti said, raising his cup and rubbing his wooden eye. He took a swig of his drink and looked at Pintel.

"He was a gentleman of fortune, he was," Pintel added to the affectionate words.

Elizabeth looked into her cup and finally took a good swallow of the liquid as well. "He was a good man," she said, glancing at the floor and avoiding Will's stare. She didn't want to see her betrayal reflected in his dark eyes, not again. Didn't he understand she did it to save them all? She knew what he'd seen, it was obvious from his reaction. Couldn't he understand?

Will said nothing; he just kept throwing his father's knife into the table, each stab carving out another small chunk of wood. He stared at Elizabeth, anger in his eyes as he spoke up. "If there was anything to be done to bring him back, Elizabeth…"

Tia Dalma interrupted him. "Would you do it? Hmm?" She asked him and then turned her attention to Elizabeth, well knowing that she was the woman who had captured Jack's heart. The woman the compass had pointed to whenever he had looked at it. "What would you? Hmm?"

She turned to look around the room. "What would any of you be willing to do? Hmm? Will you sail to the ends of the Earth and beyond to fetch back our wounded Jack and him precious Pearl?"

Tia Dalma's voice penetrated their minds as she asked them that most important question. The question which would possibly decide whether Jack would live or not. She looked at their faces and one by one they answered her.

"Aye," from Gibbs first.

Pintel and Ragetti agreed, "Aye."

Even Cotton's parrot chimed in: "Awk! Aye!"

Tia Dalma fixed Elizabeth with a firm stare.

Elizabeth nodded. "Yes," she answered quietly.

In a whisper, Will finished, "Aye."

Jack Sparrow was their Captain and they wouldn't let him go without a fight. He may have been a pirate, but they all were, and Jack Sparrow was a good man, they all knew that. He may have had a wicked way of showing his honesty, but it was there. Bless Jack, the man did have a heart of gold.

"All right, but if you're going to brave the weird and haunted shores at world's end... then, you will need a Captain who knows those waters," Tia Dalma continued. At the sound of boots stepping down heavily on wood, they all turned their attention toward the stairs.

"So, tell me, what's become of my ship?" Barbossa addressed the group. He took a bite of his green apple and grinned, more a sneer really than a smile, as juice dribbled down his chin. Jack the monkey perched on his shoulder, pleased to have his master back.

Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again, just staring at the man standing in the room. How was this possible?

"Cap'n?" Pintel asked as he looked at his former Captain. "I thought… you know… that Jack uh…well… uh that the Captain…" He stopped, suddenly unable to form coherent sentences.

Stunned, Ragetti swallowed and rubbed his wooden eye once more. "Captain Barbossa?"

Will came to stand in front of Barbossa, looking him straight in the eye. "And you're the man who's going to help us get Jack and the Pearl back?" He questioned, his voice low.

Jack's crew encircled Barbossa, firing questions at him.

"Where are we heading?" Marty asked.

"How do you plan on rescuing Jack?" Gibbs questioned.

Elizabeth listened, then finally stood before Barbossa herself, pushing Will aside. "What is your reason for wanting to rescue Jack? So you can kill him? Or so you can have the Pearl again?"

"I want to save Jack Sparrow just as well as you do Miss Turner. Or should I say Miss Swann?" Barbossa grinned again, and took another juicy bite from his apple.

"Hardly," Elizabeth spat out and fled from the room, escaping from Will's piercing stare. Finding herself in a small bedroom of sorts, she allowed her exhausted body to collapse on the bed and she cried herself to sleep.

TBC