Title: Reclaiming Glory

Pairings: JS/OC, WT/ES

Overview: When your entire world is taken from you, will you sit still and watch it sail away? What is worth the cost of Reclaiming Glory? (Part Two of the Kindred Spirit Series – Continuation of Send Her My Love)

Disclaimer: You know, just because this is a new instalment of my story doesn't mean that I think I own Pirates of the Caribbean. Far from it in fact. It's not mine!

A/N: Wow! Tons and tons of reviews for the end of Send Her My Love! I was thrilled to see all the comments! A lot of you are looking for a happy ending, and to be honest, I'm a bit of a sucker for one too. However, this story is completely planned from beginning to end, so I already know what the final chapter of Reclaiming Glory will be (and I'm not telling you what happens yet, so ha!). There will be ten chapters for this one, and you may be asking, why on earth would I write an entire new story for that? Well, simply put, the entire atmosphere of the fic will be changing, so I figured a new title would be suitable.
As I've said in previous notes in Send Her My Love, once this is written, it is written, and I'm not going to change it. However, after Reclaiming Glory, I may be doing a bit of a follow up piece, a set of shorts of something, just using the same characters. I'll let you know how I feel about that by the end of this story.
Enough chatter from me, on to Reclaiming Glory!

Chapter One: Desperation
One week to the day.

Things often appeared to be bleak and grey when there were no options. The familiarity of the wood behind her head was not comforting, nor were the faint sounds of bawdy laughter from the deck. The smell of the sea held no charm, not in this prison. She couldn't see it in any case, which made any attempts for escape somewhat futile. Payton held back her tears. She missed him, terribly. She kept expecting him to walk through the door, telling her to be quick, that they had to get out of here, or that he had killed that evil man, or even that she was safe. But as the days passed, the hope she was holding out for Jack was getting slim.
She had marked the passing of time on the dark wood that made the structure of her prison. She was kept essentially in a box that had a grate on the front, it was tall enough to be a room, and wide enough to be a room, but had no comforts of a room – no bed, no chair, no furniture at all. There was a hole where a knot in the wood had fallen out that allowed her to see the ocean rushing past, and feel the spray of the water. But that gave her little joy now.
Soon, she knew that someone would come for her. And she'd be taken above deck for a few moments before being pushed into Calico's cabin. At least then she'd eat – she only ever got the chance when she was with him. With she was below deck, she was pretty much ignored in all respects, not that she minded it too much. Sometimes she'd get visitors – a cabin boy who was petrified of staying aboard, but didn't know how to escape, or the cook, who would sneak her an end of bread and some grog. Other times Gilles would be there, no saying anything, just watching her. She never spoke to him, but even after he left, she felt dirty.
Above, a shout, and Payton closed her eyes in despair. Calico wanted a girl. She heard the booted feet on the stairs, the creaking of the floorboards, and opened her eyes to see an unfamiliar crewmember standing there. Opening the grate, she was dragged out and taken again.

Jack was pacing. It was something he was very good at. Every now and then, he'd look over at the horizon to see if there were any ships nearby. But every time, it was an expanse of blue sea meeting blue sky. He'd kick the sand, and resume pacing, mumbling under his breath, cursing, trying to figure out something he could do. And every time he'd come up blank. Angry, he flopped down into the sand, aggressively picking up the rum bottle and downing most of it in one shot. Then he sighed, dropping the rum on the sand. It wasn't doing him much good, it wasn't even a good way to pass the time. Along with the rum, he was getting fairly tired of eating coconuts too. Though they may be tasty, a steady diet of the fruit was nothing short of boring. And even when he was drunk, it wouldn't help to solve his problems, it just made them seem worse. To top it all off, he was going stir crazy, trapped on this tiny spit of land. He missed the sea breeze on the deck of his Pearl, he missed the talk with his crew, he missed her. Though the surroundings could be called a paradise, there were many different names for prison. This one seemed to be the worst.
He rubbed at his eyes, wishing that there was something he could do. But this island has so few resources, no vines to strap together logs, not much in the way of trees, so he was stranded. Marooned. It rankled to know that right now Calico Jacques had stolen his ship, his crew, and Payton, and gotten away with it. There was nothing he could do.

A/N: Yay, depressing! Okay, you all know what to do, lemme know what you think! I've got a fresh batch of cyber-cookies for those who do!