Fell Too Far

By: Delu

A/N: O-kay. Before anyone starts to yell at me/maim me/kill me, I'd just like to say this: I am burnt out on Harry Potter. I know, sad thing, but I've just had too much of it! Twenty something stories on only my versions of the HP world does that to you (even if most of them aren't finished...). So, I'm hoping to restart my writing with some PotC.

All right, I think I've said all that I need to say.

Words: 2004

Disclaimer: I don't own Jack (unfortunately) or Will (again, unfortunately) or Elizabeth (fine by me, don't like her anyhow) or anybody else or anything else that you may recognize. I do own Lee and Izzy, though, so HA!

Chapter One

June 15, 2007

12:24 AM

I am tired; there is nothing more that I want to do now than sleep. Sad part is - I can't.

I've been laying in bed trying to rest for a little more than an hour and a half. Would you like to know what the result of this nighttime quest is? One beaten up pillow, two tossed sheets, a crumpled History report, and one less chapter to read in my horrendously long and overwhelmingly boring assigned English book.

Oh, the joys of insomnia.

I don't even know why I can't sleep. I'm not that stressed; my under-paid job as a personal assistant is not taxing, school is fairly easy for me, and I have no boyfriend to speak of. So why exactly won't my deranged mind shut down for eight hours a night and give me some well needed (and deserved, I might add) rest?

It's like how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie-pop - The world may never know. Which, unfortunately for me, means I will never know either.

Which means I will never get another good nights sleep in.

Oh, God; kill me now, please?

- Lee Palafox

I signed out my name in the little black book that I keep for a journal and yawned. Thank God I know at least one cure for insomnia - writing. Not that it's boring or anything, it just makes me tired. Which is good, when you think about me and my luck for getting to sleep at a regular hour of the night like normal people. But then again, who ever said I was normal? Certainly not me or Izzy, my roommate. Heck, Iz has said on more than one occasion that I was the weirdest person she knew.

I've always taken that as a compliment.

I glanced over at said friend. She was asleep in her blue shirt and matching pants, as per usual for this time of night. Unlike me, once she fell asleep, she stayed asleep; plus she had no problems getting to sleep. Sometimes I loathe her for that fact; but most of the time it's just endearing. Why endearing? Well, simply because she's my exact opposite, and for some reason that makes me like her even more.

She has short red hair and a perky attitude (after 9 in the morning, that is; she is not what most people call a morning person, quite unlike myself) and she's always making people laugh. Rambunctious and out-going, she is in many ways like the little sister I never had, even if she's older than I am. She also loves nice, cold places where it snows (I blame that on the fact that she grew up in England; I, though, grew up in sunny Florida right next to the beach. I'd take swimming with sharks rather than ice-skating with seals any day).

I, on the other hand, have dark brown, curly hair that goes past my shoulders and I am not a "people person." I generally don't like big crowds and I prefer to stay at home and read or watch a movie with some friends rather than go out and party like it's 1999 all over again. As you can see, we are pretty much utter opposites, like I've said.

The one thing that we both have in common though (other than our freaky sense of humour)? Pirates of the Caribbean. Of course, she likes dearest William (who has that pompous princess, Elizabeth) while I go for the swaggering, smarmy, and slightly un-hygienic Captain Jack Sparrow.

What can I say, I like pirates. I'd choose Jack over that gentleman Will any day. Though, if I couldn't have Jack, I'd go for the Commodore (after all, he gets down and dirty in Dead Man's Chest; and I rather like his regular brown hair more than that ice-cream wig of his).

I sighed and cut off the inner monologue to myself as I climbed back into bed. I had to get up early tomorrow for some big shindig that Izzy is throwing for my twenty-third birthday. She won't tell me what it is, but I have a feeling that it might have something to do with the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

It had better, though, because I am not going to wait much longer to see Jack come back to life. Which I know he is going to do because, come on, he's Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?

The next day (Sunday, as it happened to be) came bright and early, and for some reason this irritated me. Honestly, that day it seemed like me and Iz switched places. I'd actually gotten a good nights sleep (or, at least, a better one than I thought I'd be getting) and she woke up before I did!

I swear, the Apocalypse is coming. We should all be getting ready with bomb shelters and whatnot right now; but you know what? Screw. That. You know why? When I woke up, the first thing Iz said to me was,

"Get up, get dressed; that is unless you don't want to see Sparrow come back from the gut of that over-grown squid."

Which pretty much woke me up then and there. Yay for her dramatic sense of... herself. Really, there's no other way to describe it. Anyhow, back to whatever it was what I was talking about.

I climbed out of bed and glanced at my little digital clock; 8:57. I already knew that the movie started at ten that morning (that fire haired roommie of mine gave me my ticket; yay for her. She knows I collect these things - I told you, I'm weird), and I also knew that she was doing something else.

Before you ask, no, she did not actually tell me anything else was going on. The only reason I know is because I know Isabella Greyson very, very well, and I know that creepy gleam she gets in her eyes is something that I would usually be worried about. But right now, I could really care less; I was going to a three hour movie starring Captain Jack Sparrow - I felt invincible.

Okay, so we were sitting at one of the tables in front of my favorite coffee shop (Black Coffee, which has the best dang coffee a woman could ask for) and I had no clue what was going on. It was 9:25, we had our coffee/tea and a plate of breakfast brunch things that came with the special and yet Iz just sat there with an unreadable look on her face, gazing off into her tea. I swear, she's starting to creep me out a little.

First, the abrupt wake-up this morning, then she makes us walk to the coffee shop (even though she knows I love to drive; I've got my own classic car: a black '67 Chevy Impala with original paint), and now she's just sitting here all un-emotional like and it's really, really freaky.

I'm tempted to kick here in the shin to see what happens.

But right before I do, she looks up at me with a little twinkle in her eye that oddly reminds me of Dumbledore, and smirks.

"Hey, Lee, I have a question for you," she says in this pseudo-mystic voice, kind of like she's impersonating Tia Dalma, without the Jamaican accent. I nod at her to continue, oddly quiet in my anticipation. "How much would you hate me if I bought you a hat?" She queried. I groaned. I hate hats. Unless it's Jack's; then it's fine and dandy.

"I would gut you like a fish and feed you to those seals at the zoo you're so fond of," I glared.

Unfazed, she pulled out a box from under the seat that was wrapped in plain brown packing paper. I sighed. She grinned. I scowled. She pushed it towards me. You might think it strange, our non-verbal sparring matches; but it's normal for us. After all, I have known her since I started high school. I can pretty much tell you what she's thinking all the time. Creepy; but fun.

Finally, I ripped off the dang paper and opened the box, tired of Iz's knowing and grinning gaze. I hate it when she toys with me. I'm about to snap at her to quit it (another thing we do a lot is argue, but it's friendly... mostly) when I lift the lid off of the box and look at my new hat.

If I weren't such an in-control person I probably would have gasped at it. I loved it.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, "didn't she just say she hated hats?" But it wasn't like all the other hats in the world. It wasn't a trucker cap, or a baseball hat, or a floppy gauche hat. No, it was a pirate hat.

It was worn black leather, but not too worn to use or anything like that. Just the right amount to where it's worn in, but not out of use. It was a tri-point, and almost as big as Jack's but not quite. And it had a white scratch-like thing on the left flap. The scratch was about the size of a quarter, but it wasn't an imperfection to the hat; it just made it seem even better.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Put it on," Iz said to me and stole my previous idea of the kicking of the shins. Her rude awakening moved me into action and I plopped the cap down upon my head carefully. I look at her like I was sizing her up, all shifty-eye like.

"Well, I guess the seals will have to wait for another feeding time then," I sniffed, then grinned and tackled her from the other side of the table.

Okay, for everyone who has not seen At World's End YOU HAVE TO GO AND SEE IT RIGHT THIS INSTANT.

I swear, it was great. Action, adventure, romance, insane-multi-Jack-ness going on. It was mind blowing. Even if Will betrayed a crap load of people, it was still awesome. It was long though, and it had politics all through it, and it was slightly confusing; but it was all worth it to see the bare chest and back of one Captain Jack Sparrow.

Okay, too much fangirlism going on there. But for some reason, I just can't seem to quit. Maybe it's because the movie just ended? No, seriously, we were still in the theater because the front doors were too jam packed to get out of without risking serious injury or getting drooled on by some pre-teen with the hotts for Will. Iz would kill me if she heard me say that.

At seeing some people going out through the back exits, Izzy poked me in the ribs.

"Oi, what was that for?!" I asked; I'm awfully sensitive in the torso section of my body.

"Let's go out the back door so we don't get mauled by the preteens," she nodded to the blinking red exit signs then pointed over to a group of girls with "Where has the rum gone?" shirts on who looked all of thirteen. I grimaced then nodded and we headed towards the back door.

Once we went through the door, evidently we came into an alley that had no light in it at all, since neither of us could see a thing.

"Iz? You there?" I asked to the nothingness around me. I felt kind of silly.

"Yeah, Lee, I'm right he - eeere!" She sounded only five feet away when she started the sentence, but when she finished it, she screeched as if she was falling.

"Iz? Izzy! Where did you go - shoot!" Well, I was right about one thing: she did fall. Know how I know? Because I did too, and I'll tell you something else:

We fell a lot farther than the five or so feet to the ground.

So, how'd you like it? Good, bad? What?

Remember, you review and I'll give you brownie points... :)

- Delu