A/N: I do not own Jack or the Black Pearl, which leads me to ask WHY CAN'T I?!
Calli stood at the helm of the Black Pearl, awaiting her father's return from the prison. A month had passed since the Isle De Muertè incident or escapade rather. She looked off into the early morning darkness; her father was to return earlier but had failed to turn up. She could hear Gibbs, in his drunken state, singing a very chilling song for the moment. She was about to tell him to shut up when a bell from the prison rang out one o'clock over the indigo water.
Callista ran to the starboard side of the ship for any sign of her father. The past month had been like something out of a dream. She and Jack had grown as close as any father and daughter could be. They had sailed across the Caribbean and farther to Asian seas. Calli enjoyed pirating. It was now part of her like a wave is to the sea. She even discarded her dress for a pair of boy's trousers, a loose, but not too loose, white shirt, with a blue vest over it. Her shoes were her old ones, easy and comfortable to move in from years of wear. Calli's long, dark brown hair was braided back, to keep out of her way. However, the only thing she would always have with her was the gold locket displaying her last name. She twirled it now around her fingers, watching and waiting at the ship's edge.
Through the darkness, a figure rowing a coffin could be seen making its way toward the Pearl. "Father!" Calli cried. She, Cotton, and Gibbs, ran to help Jack out onto the deck.
"You're back later than intended." Calli commented. Jack never gave her a direct answer but was an explanation nonetheless.
"Complications aroused, ensued, and were overcome." He answered wearily. He put an arm around his daughter as they moved toward their cabins. The crew, along with recently added members, had surrounded them in moments of Jack's return. They each complained of their way of pirating were not the "honest way". Calli had something to say about this.
"What are you talking about? We've done nothing but go pirating. We are pirates so I do believe that is what we do!" Callista could not see their point at all.
"What we mean is that we've done what only Jack calls pirating. All this honesty and bargaining and we haven't anything to call shiny!" One of the newest members complained.
"Shiny," Jack repeated. He started to hold up the bit of cloth from the prison when that blasted monkey jumped down and tore it from Jack's hands. Jack, the pirate, took a pistol and shot Jack, the pirate monkey. It let the cloth fall from its grip and jumped back up aloft.
Marty ran forth to retrieve the cloth. "It's a key!" he said. Jack ran to him and took the cloth. "No, it's much better! It is the drawing of a key!"
The crew looked puzzled, even Callista. Where was her father going with this?
"Gentlemen, Calli, what do keys do?" He asked a sly smile on his tanned face.
"Keys…unlock….things?" The newer one said. Calli stifled a laugh. Good job intelligent one. She thought. "Exactly." Jack answered. Okay, now Calli was really lost. The next things said were absolutely confusing and could not have made any more sense if it were spoken in whale.
As the crew was left dumbfounded, Calli rushed over to Jack and followed him into the cabin. "Father, what exactly are we doing?" she asked quizzically.
"What do ye mean, love?" Jack's focus was mainly on his map and his compass. He put those things down and looked at her with deep brown eyes looking into his daughter's equally brown eyes.
"I mean, what is this about a key? What's your plan now?" Calli said impatiently. As a thirteen-year old girl, she still had the right to act younger.
Jack hesitated and told her, "I'm not even entirely sure, love." Which was not entirely true, but was very much so a big part.
"Well, tell me when you figure it out." And with that, Callista left to her adjoining cabin alongside her father's cabin. She sat on the bed and removed the golden locket and her hair tie. She sank beneath the covers and drifted off to the ocean's gentle tide.
Meanwhile, Jack was up and alert for many hours into the night but mainly frustrated. "Buggering compass…," he muttered under his breath. For the past few days, ever since his plan popped into his head, his compass had been going mad. It would keep pointing this way and that. Toward the sea, behind him where Calli's room was, to the ship, and any other direction you could imagine. He grabbed his bottle of rum containing a few drops and turned it upside down. It was not enough to satisfy him. "Why is the rum always gone?" he mumbled. He got to his feet and almost fell over. "Oh, that's why." He smirked to himself and left the cabin.
Down below deck, Jack ran into an old friend on his quest for rum, while Callista rested peacefully, unknowing of the horror of Jack's critical situation.
After what seemed like only hours, Jack's call from outside jerks her awake. She sits up and listens to the commotion on deck. She sighs, fixes her hair, and races out on deck.
"What is it? What's the alarm for?" She asks hurriedly to the shuffling crew around her. However, no one answered her. They were all doing their usual tasks but in lightening speed. "Someone answer me!" She was the one frustrated now. Gibbs stalled what he was doing and looked at her. "Callista, Jack's ordering that we leave the open ocean now, but I know no more than you do."
They found Jack behind the stairs up to the wheel. "Father, what's going on?! Where are we going?!" Gibbs sided with her. "What's after us?!" Jack looked scared and spoke with a forced calm in his voice.
"Nothing's after us. We're fine, perfectly fine. Nothing's going on, love. We're just in a bit of a hurry, really. We just need to get to land." Jack looked very flustered at that moment, and pale. Something had Jack worried.