CHAPTER ONE

"So tell me, what's become of my ship?"

Will and Gibbs drew their swords in one swift movement while Ragetti and Pintel stumbled backwards, clutching each other. Only Elizabeth stayed put, her expression unreadable.

Tia Dalma stepped forward, grinning largely, although her blackened teeth forced her expression into something more akin to a sneer. "I would introduce you to da Captain, but I am told dat you already be knowin' each udder."

"You expect us to sail with him?" Will snarled. "If we are to rescue Jack it will not be under his command!"

Barbossa raised a shaggy eyebrow but said nothing, choosing to take another supple bite of his apple instead. The juicy spray erupted over his beard.

Tia Dalma's smile faded and she pointed a bony finger in Will's direction.

"You said, if dere was anyting to be done, and now you not be willin' to do anyting?" She lowered her arm and raised her head in a haughty gesture. "I be callin' you a liar den, William Turner."

"I am not a liar!" he retorted hotly. "Barbossa is a murderer and we will not sail with him."

"Do not presume to tell me his crimes," Tia Dalma's voice grew softer and more dangerous. "They are naught compared to what you will do."

Will faltered, "What?"

"How are you alive, Captain Barbossa?"

Everyone ceased their talking and stared at Elizabeth as she moved slowly towards the rather bemused looking pirate.

"Miss Swann," he purred, tipping his overly large hat, "It seems you've taken my advice and given up on ceremony after all. Although I must say those breeches really do nothing for you."

Will started to say something but Elizabeth interrupted, taking another step closer. "Why would you help us get Jack? You've tried to kill him in the past. And he did kill you, in case you've forgotten. Why would you risk yourself to help him now?"

Barbossa grinned mischievously. "Oh, I've not forgotten. But you'll be wantin' to ask Tia Dalma those questions, my dear. I am in her debt and therefore merely a tool to her whims."

Elizabeth shifted her gaze to the voodoo lady.

"Do it really matter why if I be showin' you how?" she replied coyly.

The stillness of the room stretched on for several seconds before it was Elizabeth who finally broke the deafening silence. She turned away from Barbossa and Tia Dalma. Her hair hung limply about her face and her eyes remained red and haunted but now a spark of fierceness shone from them as well.

"Lower your swords," she told Will and Gibbs.

"But-," Will protested.

"Just do it!" she snapped. They complied reluctantly. Will attempted to make eye contact with his fiancé but Elizabeth refused to meet his gaze, instead fixing it on a neutral point on the wall beyond all their heads. "If anyone here does not want to come, then I suggest they leave now. As for myself, I am accompanying Captain Barbossa." No one spoke or moved so she continued. "We all owe Jack," her voice dropped and she finished in a near whisper. "Some more than others…"

Elizabeth met Will's gaze and a tear silently escaped her eye.

Taking a deep breath, Will sheathed his weapon. "When do we leave… Captain?"

Barbossa chuckled. "Don't get too ahead of ye self, Mr. Turner. We sail at first light. In the meantime, I suggest that ye all do well to prepare yourselves. There be more horrors at world's end than the kind you can kill with a sword."

Still chuckling darkly, Barbossa exited the room. Jack the monkey followed at his heel, turning around to screech at everyone before disappearing from view. Ragetti and Pintel shot questioning looks at each other, then shrugging, walked after their former captain.

"What sorts of horrors do you think he means, Gibbs?" Will asked softly, his eyes fixed on Elizabeth, who sat with an almost catatonic expression on her face.

"Well," Gibbs began, "if you believe that sort of thing, it is said that at world's end there is a door of sorts to the locker of Davy Jones himself. Inside Davy Jones' locker," his voice lowered for dramatic effect, "there are the things which frighten you the most, horrors and beasts so fearsome that nay a man alive could survive to tell about." His eyes swept around the room, surveying the effects of his story. Apparently disappointed, he finished flippantly, "that is, of course, if yer believin' in such things."

Tia Dalma, who had been listening to Gibbs with an apparently amused expression, grinned enigmatically at him, then walked into the adjoining room. The sounds of her muttering and moving something rather large soon followed. Will stood up as if to go help her, then, seeming to think better of it, sat back down.

"I guess we should all get some sleep then," Will told the remaining occupants of the room.

"Aye, right you are, lad," Gibbs said, lowering his head to his chest. Moments later he was snoring. Will shook his head in astonishment, then turned to Elizabeth, who still hadn't moved.

"Are you just going to sit here all night?" He asked her, not managing to keep the coldness out of his voice.

She appeared startled for a moment, then sighed dejectedly, her long hair falling in strings across her face. "I don't know."

"Elizabeth…" He stared at her for a moment, his mouth open in question, but seeming to reach some resolve, closed it.

"I'll be outside," he said after a moment. Will rose to his feet and left out the front door, leaving his fiancé the solitude of the room. Elizabeth stared after him for a moment, and long into the night. Somewhere in her breast she knew he was hurting, that he needed to speak with her. But at the moment Elizabeth was coping with her own demons. The ironic twist to the situation was that she didn't want to cope. She didn't want to forget. She especially didn't want to forgive. She closed her eyes after a time, and to some she would have appeared asleep. But the mind beneath the eyelids remained sharp and lucid, and terribly aware.

"It's the only way, don't you see?…I'm not sorry…not sorry… not sorry…"