(EDITED)

Alice's POV:

In Jail.

Again.

Believe it or not, but one can literally go insane being locked up in a cell with your cell mate unconscious whilst listening to other prisoners trying to get the keys from a dog.

For about two bloody hours.

When the guards took Jack and I to the jail cell, they had taken all of his effects, but they didn't even check me. Seriously, it's as if they honestly thought to themselves: "Well this pirate lady with a mysterious dark cape on couldn't have any weapons because she's just a pretty little woman."

Honestly, I would never understand them.

I had been sitting under the window in my cell for about two hours, playing with one of my rings when I saw movement. None other than Commodore James Norrington had entered the jail and was approaching the cell that I shared with Jack.

I stood up and walked over to the bars, "'Ello James," I smirked, "Come to spend time with an old friend eh? Well, I'm sorry, but this reunion might be a little bit of a downer."

"Alice, I am sorry, but this is my job. What on earth are you doing? Piracy? Last I saw of you, you were coming to Port Royal with Aria… and you had left me…" He trails off and I see a flicker of pain in his eyes. He clears his throat and looks me in the eyes, "Now you're pillaging the seas? What has become of you, Alice?"

"James, it has been twelve years since I have seen you. Twelve years of hardships that I have faced. You don't know what it's like to have nothing!" I whispered as aggressively as possible at him.

He didn't know why I was a pirate and yet he acted as if I had turned into a monster.

"James, times are hard. You…you have everything. This, pirating is my job. It just...just doesn't pay much unless you know what to look for."

"Alice, where's Aria. Please tell me you did not force her to become a pirate too?"

I hesitated, for I really did not want to answer his question. I chose my words carefully. "James, she is where nothing can harm her now."

James looked at me sadly, "Alice, if it's about the money, I can help."

"It's not the money!" I snapped.

"Because today I asked Elizabeth Swann-"

"The girl at the docks? The governor's daughter," I interrupted.

"Yes. I asked her to marry me and-"

"A wedding? Oh, I love weddings!" I smiled, trying to cover up the pain I felt. Why did my heart break to hear him say that he had asked another woman to marry him? I shouldn't feel like this. I hadn't seen the man in twelve years for god's sake.

"Please do not interrupt me. But yes, I asked her to marry me. When she says yes and once she is my bride, well, we could adopt Aria," he grinned, pleased with his offer.

I grabbed the bars furiously. "Are you implying that I could not provide Aria with what she needs?" I snarled.

James' smile dropped quickly at my fury, "No, no, not at all, I just think that we could give her everything she could ever want, she could-"

"James! Stow it! I would never give my daughter away to you and some snobby, obnoxious, high class pig!"

He backed away slowly. "Just...just, please leave," I let go of the bars when I heard the door to the jail close and turned to go set back under the window, waiting until dawn...

Xx

After a while, the whistling of the other prisoners faded away and I fell asleep. I was shaken awake abruptly what felt like only minutes later. I sat up to see that Jack was the one who'd shaken me awake.

"Good, you're finally awake," I said as I pulled my hood back. I wouldn't need it for a pillow anymore.

"Me?" Jack asked looking taken aback, "You were the one asleep Alice."

I snorted, "Oh Jack, perhaps your memory just isn't what it used to be!"

He frowned, upset at this and stood up abruptly, "My memory is fine."

"You were the one that got knocked unconscious by a drunken blacksmith that probably doesn't even do anything, after fighting a young whelp!" I laughed.

"True enough," he agreed before sitting down across from me.

"So, Jack, what's it been huh? Twelve years of different pirating lifestyles...that really aren't so different, are they?"

"No, they're not," he agreed. "It is good to see you though, how you are doing after...you know..."

I laughed, avoiding the subject he was referring to, "Jack we are in jail, bound to hang on the morrow. How do you think I'm doing?"

I didn't meet his eyes even though I knew what he was fishing at. I did not need to talk about her again, not after the Commodore's little proposal.

Jack sensed the tension in the air and changed the subject. "So, do you have a fine lad of your own? I'm sure a pretty young woman, such as yourself would attract many admirers," he smirked.

I smacked him on the knee playfully, "No. Do you? I mean a lass? Do you have one? Oh, wait, I've been in Tortuga a few times, so I know you do."

I love messing with him. We had always tried to find ways to humiliate each other.

"See Jack, I do my own work. I have successfully read stories of or heard the legends of every single infamous pirate to ever sail the seas," I smiled at my own (slightly unpirate-y) accomplishment.

He laughed at me, making me frown, "You always were a little bookworm, weren't you?"

I smiled pleased that he could remember something about me, "Oh the great Captain Jack Sparrow," I exaggerated, "Actually remembered something about me!"

He laughed at my theatrics.

"My, oh I'm so happy that I could just..." I pretended to faint.

Now we were both laughing at this point and it felt good. I hadn't laughed in so long...

Xx

"You did not say that!" Jack laughed at my story. We had been telling each other of some of our adventures from the past twelve years.

"I did, I swear it!" I laughed at my own audacious nature.

Night had fallen and we both were running out of time. My face fell; we would both be dead in the morning.

The sailors in the other cells were still begging the dog to bring them the keys. How stupid could people be? If the dog was going to give it to them, he would have by now.

I played off my worry as annoyance. "Why won't they shut it?" I whispered to Jack, who was leaning on the opposite side of our cell, with his hat over his face.

"I don't know."

I relaxed a bit and laid down on the ground, curling up, and wishing I had a book. I closed my eyes. I just wouldn't dwell on the fact that I probably wouldn't live much longer. I hummed the song that my locket played to myself, hoping sleep would eventually come.

It didn't.

I continued to hum anyway, as it always calmed me.

"If you keep doing that forever, the dog is never going to move," Jack stated annoyed by the continuous mutterings of the other prisoners.

"You're wasting your breaths," I commented, sitting up and opening my eyes knowing sleep would never come.

"Oh, excuse us if we haven't resigned ourselves to the gallows just yet," one of the prisoners turned to look back at us.

Jack looked up at him and smirked at his fear, while I shook my head in aggravation. My lord. None of us wanted to die, but Jack and I weren't annoying the hell out of everybody else because of it.

We sat in our cell quietly before the sound of cannons broke the silence.

I stood up as Jack rushed to look out the tiny barred off window, "I know those guns."

I walked over to him hoping that it was not who I thought it was. "It's the Pearl," he whispered reverently as I shoved him to the side so I could look to be sure. It was the Black Pearl.

I really need to learn not to piss people off.

Was that why Captain Barbossa was here?

Shit.

I got down and let Jack stay at the window while I sat on the small ledge beneath it.

"The Black Pearl?" a prisoner came to the bars of the cell on the other side of us, peering at Jack. "I've heard stories. She's been preying on ships and settlements for nearly ten years. Never leaves any survivors," he looked apprehensive.

I snorted at the man. Really?

Jack turned back to look at the man, "No survivors? Then where do the stories come from I wonder."

Jack had stated exactly what I was thinking. The man looked behind him; having been proven to be wrong did not settle with him apparently, because he looked upset.

I didn't need to see what Jack saw, I could hear well enough.

Port Royal was under cannon fire.

I heard screaming and I felt my heart ache for the innocent people. Children could be killed at this very moment! I closed my eyes.

I was a pirate, but I did not believe in the senseless killing of innocent people.

Suddenly a cannon hit the jail and Jack jumped down off the window and pulled me down on the ground with him. I hit my head and my vision was starting to blur. I sat up slowly, trying to get my vision to stop whirling.

Jack leaned over to me. "You alright love?" he asked with concern.

"Fine. Stupendous. I could throw a party," I snapped.

He laughed, "Glad to see that your sarcasm is still intact."

He looked over to the other cell with a strange look on his face. I looked to see what he was gaping at and saw that the blast had made a large hole in the other cell. All of the remaining prisoners were streaming out.

I leaned back against Jack's chest, closed my eyes, and groaned at all of today's bad luck.

"Sympathies, friends. It's not a matter of luck at all," a straggling man said before leaving Jack and I the only two in jail.

Jack stood and looked at the edge of our cell, where if fate were kinder, a hole might've been blown and we could be free. He gazed into the night before grabbing the bone that the other prisoners had been using to try to persuade the dog to come. Jack held it out and started whistling at the dog, shaking the bone around.

I rolled my eyes, "Jack, please tell me that you are not seriously trying to call that damn dog. I thought that we agreed the idea was idiotic." I stood up and wobbled a bit, almost falling down, but finally gaining some balance.

"Come on doggie, it's just you and us now, just you and Alice, and Ole' Jack, come on," he called to the mutt that was actually starting to come toward us.

I couldn't believe I was doing this but I stepped up to the bars and looked at the dog. "Come now doggie, don't you want to come and help us out, your dear friends here? Come on you sweet little doggie! If you come we'll give you this nice bone 'ere and maybe we'll take you with us," I crooned to the dog.

The dog was almost to us now and I couldn't believe that this worked.

Jack continued, "Come on that's it. Come on, come on, that's a good boy. Come on! Bit closer, bit closer! That's it, that's it doggie!"

The dog was right outside our cell now. I smiled at our victory.

"Come on you filthy, slimy, mangy cur..." the dog turned and ran away. "No, no, no, no, no! I didn't mean it, I didn- oh-"

I cut him off with a painful slap on the cheek, "Jack! Why did you have to screw that up?"

He rubbed his cheek and mumbled something incoherent as the door slammed open. We both looked to see a dead guard fall down the stairs followed by two familiar pirates.

"This ain't the armory!" Twigg grumbled to the Bo 'sun.

"Well, well, well, look what we 'ave here Twigg, Captain Jack Sparra'."

That pirate spit on Jack who had been glaring at the two and now Jack looked down in disgust at the spit. "The last time I saw you, you were all alone, on a god forsaken island, shrinking into the distance," Twigg told his friend.

"His fortunes aren't improved much, except, he has company this time. Is that you Miss Shadow?"

I gave the two a fake smile and then continued to glare.

"Worry about your own fortunes gentlemen," Jack smiled, sly as a fox, "The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers." Jack glared at the two.

Bo' sun grabbed Jack's neck through the bars and when his hand fell into the pool of moonlight from the window, his hand and wrist turned skeletal. I gasped and grabbed Jack's hand in fear and also so that I could be ready to pull him out of Bo 'sun's grasp.

Jack looked revolted yet intrigued at the same time as he glanced at the hand that had grabbed his neck. "So, there is a curse, that's interesting," he continued to look at the hand.

"You know nothing of hell," Bo 'sun whispered bitterly, before jerking his hand away from Jack's neck.

They turned to leave, but Bo' sun turned back to look at me, a smirk on his face, "Oh and Shadow, Captain Barbossa will be interested to know that you're still alive. Very interested indeed."

The two stalked off.

I let go of Jack's hand and he rested both of his outside the bars. "That's very interesting," he mumbled to himself as he held up his hand as if it too would turn skeletal.

"Jack give me that bone," I commanded, sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning my back against the wall.

He looked at me as if I were crazy, "Um, Alice, the dog is gone."

I huffed, why couldn't he trust me?

"I know, thanks to you! Now give me the bloody bone!"

Jack handed it to me before sitting cross-legged, opposite of me. I smiled and pulled out my knife. It had a black handle and a few pearls around the rim of it.

Jack's eyes grew big, "Where did you get that?"

I shrugged, "The guards never checked me for weapons. Ha!"

I began sharpening the bone with the knife; it just needed to be pointy enough that we could use it to open the door...

Xx

After a few hours of sharpening I finally handed the bone to Jack.

"I sharpened it, you open the door," I told him while putting the knife back on my belt, sitting up on my knees.

Jack had almost gotten the door when we heard someone enter the jail. Jack fell back on the ground quickly as a man ran in, and unfortunately, he fell back on top of me.

"Jack, no offense, but get off. You're real damn heavy." I whispered to him.

"Of course, love, how could I take offense to that?" he replied sarcastically before rolling off of me so that he was lying on the floor beside me.

"You! Sparrow!" the man said.

It was the man from the blacksmith's!

Jack tilted his head up slightly, "Eh?"

"You're familiar with that ship, the Black Pearl?" the man asked.

I slowly moved to the back of the cell and put my hood on. I didn't want this man to see me.

"I've heard of it."

"Where does it make berth?"

"Where does it make berth?" Jack asked incredulously, "Have you not heard the stories?"

"Captain Barbossa and his crew of miscreants sail from the dreaded Isla de Muerta. It's an island that cannot be found, except, by those who already know where it is," I told the man.

Jack glared at me for ruining his chance to tell the story.

"Thank you, Miss...?" I know he expected me to answer him with my name, but I said nothing, so he turned back to Jack.

"The ship's real enough, therefore its anchorage must be a real place," the man pushed, "Where is it?"

Clearly the man was growing aggravated.

Jack studied his hand. "Why ask me?" he toyed with the man.

"Because you're a pirate," the man huffed, annoyed.

"And you want to turn pirate yourself, is that it? Or you just won't ask a lady pirate?"

The man grabbed onto the bars in fury at Jack's "jokes", then calmed down a bit. "Never," he stated appalled, "And I do respect women, even if they are pirates."

I chuckled at this, "Oh the man has honor eh?" I smirked to myself.

When Jack lay back down, uninterested, then man stepped back.

"They took Miss Swann," he stated reluctantly, as he let go of the bars.

"Oh, so it is that you've found a girl!" Jack sat up smiling, "I see. Well if you're intending to brave all, hasten to her rescue, and so win fair lady's heart, you'll have to do it alone mate," Jack glanced back at me and I nodded. "We see no profit in it for us."

"I can get you out of here," the man offered.

"How's that, the keys' ran off," Jack glanced over to the door, as if expecting the dog to reappear.

"Because of you," I commented, causing Jack to frown slightly.

The man looked up at the cell bars, studying them for a moment. "I helped build these cells," he stated matter-o-factly, "These are half pin-barrel hinges."

"Oh, look the man knows his metals!" I smirked.

"With the right leverage and the proper application of strength," the man said while moving a bench to the door, "The door will lift free."

Okay fine. That was cool, and something that I didn't know.

Darn.

Jack looked just as interested.

"What's your name," he asked.

"Will Turner."

"Oh god! It cannot be." I whispered. I pulled my hood closer around my face.

"That would be short for William I imagine. A good, strong name. No doubt named for your father eh?" Jack asked. By his tone, I knew he was planning something.

"Yes," Will stated stiffly.

"Oh," Jack looked down before standing up, "I've changed me mind! If you spring us from this cell, we swear on pain of death, we shall take you to the Black Pearl, and your bonny lass. Do we have an accord?" Jack stuck out his hand to shake.

Will took it, and smiled, "Agreed."

"Agreed. Get us out!" Jack motioned to the bars with his hands.

I remained on the floor. It couldn't be him. It just couldn't.

Will opened the door and Jack walked out immediately. Still I remained on the floor.

"Miss?" I looked up to see Will coming toward me and Jack look back at us.

"You're coming too. You can't just stay here," he held out his hand, "Come on, please, I won't hurt you I promise."

I grabbed his hand slowly and let him pull me to my feet and lead me out of the cell. I couldn't admit that he already had.

"Hurry, someone would have heard that," Will said.

Jack glanced at me curiously, before saying, "Not without my effects," he grabbed them and made even more noise. We hurried to escape the jail, and my mind was reeling. I had met five people that I hadn't seen in years, in less than twenty-four hours, and I was about to break.

The next chapter is going to be a flashback of what happened before the first one, it will end when we get to where she meets Jack. Alright Yo ho! and bye!

XOXO Galinda Sparrow