Sorry, sorry, sorry for the almost year long wait for an update. So much stuff has happened to me, family, school, etc., and my Pirates muses have decided to abandon me in favor of Fullmetal Alchemist. I will be finishing this story, but the updates will be slow in coming and there isn't much chance that there will be a sequal. Well, with the apologies out of the way... here's chapter 7.

The first thing I noticed when I came to was that I had a monster headache. Although, it probably didn't help that Pintel was talking loudly about parley and using guts as garters. I opened my eyes and found myself on the Black Pearl, tied to a mast with the rest of the crew. The rest of the Pearl's crew was looking out towards the Interceptor, waiting for something. Just as I remembered that the Interceptor was going to explode, it did. Even knowing that it was going to happen and that Will was going to come out of it alright didn't lessen the shock of seeing the ship that had begun to feel like a home to me blown to pieces.

Elizabeth, however, didn't have the benefit of knowing that Will had survived that explosion. She went under the rope that was binding us to the mast and started attacking Barbossa. Well, she attempted to anyway.

"Welcome back, Miss," Barbossa said as he grabbed her. "You took advantage of our hospitality last time. It only holds fair that you return the favor."

"No!" I yelled and crawled under the ropes as Barbossa shoved Elizabeth towards the crew. I tried to help her but one of the other crew members grabbed me. As things started to get rough, a voice rang clearly over all of the commotion.

"Barbossa!" It was Will. He leapt onto the deck, took what happened to be Jack's pistol, and pointed it at Barbossa. "They go free." I have to admit that that line right there, although originally it was "She goes free," was one of the reasons that Will Turner is my favorite character. There was just something that I found so awesome about it. Seeing and hearing it in person was twice as amazing. Barbossa wound up ending my fan-girl like train of thought when he spoke to Will.

"What's in your head boy?" Barbossa demanded.

"They go free!" Will repeated.

"You've only one shot and we can't die."

I heard Jack muttering, "Don't do anything stupid."

"You can't," Will answered, "but I can." He jumped onto the rail and aimed the gun at his own head.

"Like that," Jack sighed.

Barbossa looked incredibly confused now. "Who are you?"

"No one," Jack interrupted before Will could answer. "He's no one. A distant cousin of my aunt's nephew twice removed. Lovely singing voice, though - eunuch."

"What is it with you and calling him a eunuch?" I asked Jack.

Will gave me a funny look before answering Barbossa's question. I would've thought that Jack would be giving me funny looks for that one."My name is Will Turner. I am the son of Bootstrap Bill Turner. His blood runs in my veins."

"He's the spittin' image of ol' Bootstrap Bill come back to haunt us," Ragetti said.

"You just noticed that now?" I asked him. "He's been here for like ten minutes." Ragetti made a dark face at me.

"Now, you do as I say," Will continued, "or I'll pull this trigger and be lost to Davy Jones' Locker."

"Name your terms," Barbossa replied.

"They go free," Will said for at least the third time.

"Yes," Barbossa sighed, "we know that. Anything else?"

Jack started gesturing to himself, but Will missed the meaning of that. "And the crew," he said, "the crew are not to be harmed." Jack dropped his arms in defeat.

A half hour later, we were a short distance from a small island. The crew laid down a plank on the edge of the deck and forced Elizabeth onto it. One of the other pirates told me I was next. As soon as, Will realized what was going on, he started to go for Barbossa. As the crew restrained him he yelled, "Barbossa, you lying bastard! You swore they'd go free!"

"Don't dare impugn me honor, boy!" he roared back as they gagged Will. "I swore they'd go free, but it was you who failed to specify when or where." He turned back towards Elizabeth. "It does seem a shame to lose something so fine, don't it lads?" The crew chuckled in agreement. "So I'll be having that dress back before you go."

"It goes with your black heart," Elizabeth relied harshly as she threw the dress at him.

"Ooh, it's still warm," Barbossa commented.

"You disgusting bastard," I said to Barbossa.

"Now that's no way for young lady such as yourself to speak," he responded. Meanwhile, one of the other pirates decided Elizabeth had been on the plank long enough and bounced it so that she fell into the water. "You're next, you little wench," Barbossa said to me.

"It is not entirely proper to call a lady a wench," I replied as I walked out onto the plank. "See you later, Barbie," I taunted before I dived off. The look on his face when I said that was priceless. I wish that cameras had been invented so I could've taken a picture of it.

A few minutes later, I was crawling onto the beach. "I'm starting to hate that man more and more," I muttered to myself.

"At least you didn't have to be on the same ship as him for nearly a month," Elizabeth replied.

"That's true," I sighed. Elizabeth's statement made me realize that I had lost track of how much time I was here. Back when we were going to Tortuga, Will and I had established that except for the 400 year or so gap, we were on the same date. Elizabeth had just said it had been about a month. That meant it was close to my birthday. "Elizabeth, do you happen to know today's date?"

"It's the 28th of May," she replied. "Why do you ask?"

It was my birthday! "I lost track," I answered. I was about to add something more when Jack arrived.

"That's the second time I've had to watch that man sail away with my ship," he muttered to himself. Then without a word to either of us he started walking into the trees.

Elizabeth got up to follow him. "Are you coming?" she asked when she noticed I wasn't following.

"Nah," I replied. "I'd rather stay here."

She shrugged and went after Jack. While they were gone, I wound up falling asleep. I had to have been asleep only a few minutes when I was woken by something landing on my stomach. I sat up and looked at it. It was a bottle of rum. Jack and Elizabeth had returned.

"You do realize that I don't drink, right?" I asked Jack.

"It's either that or coconut water," he replied.

"I'll take my chances with the coconuts." I tossed the bottle towards Jack and began my exploration of the tiny island. It wasn't really as bad as Jack made it out to be. I wouldn't have wanted to be stuck there indefinitely, but it was a beautiful island. I found a ripe coconut on the ground under one of the trees. I used my sword to break it open and tried some of the juice. I spat it out immediately. I had just learned that I simply can't stand the taste of coconuts. I decided to explore some more. As I explored, I began humming the main Pirates theme to myself.

"That's a catchy tune," Elizabeth said from behind me. I jumped and drew my sword in surprise.

"Sorry," I said when I realized it was her. "You startled me."

"I can see that," she replied. "I didn't mean to anyway. Did you find anything interesting?"

"No," I sighed. "Well, I did find some coconuts, but for some reason I can't stand the taste of them. I might have to drink the rum after all. I really wish that wasn't the case. Alcohol has cost me too much."

"What do you mean by that?" Elizabeth asked.

"When you and Will were talking yesterday, did he mention anything about me?"

"He said that you were from the future, and what's happening now is some sort of story. He didn't really go into much detail, and he didn't really seem to understand it either."

"I can imagine. I had enough trouble explaining to him, and I was born there. Did he say anything about how I got here?"

"Just that you fell asleep in your time and woke up in ours."

"Before that…my father and I ran into a very drunk man. The man became angry with my father and…" I paused. Even a month later, it was still hard to talk about. "He shot my father…and killed him. He then started to come after me. So, I ran, found a cave to hide in, fell asleep there, and woke up in Port Royal." Elizabeth started to say something, but I stopped her. "It's not necessarily the alcohol I hate, but how irrational it makes people."

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth said.

"For what?" I replied. "You can't do anything about what happened. It's in the past…well to me it is. I guess technically now it's in the future." I stared out to the sea, which was still visible from where we were standing.

"I can still feel bad about what happened," Elizabeth replied.

I didn't respond right away. After a somewhat awkward silence, I finally spoke. "You know, they say that when you lose someone close to you, birthdays and holidays can be especially difficult to get through. I didn't realize how true that was."

"Why? Is today your birthday?"

"Yes," I answered. "I turn 16 today. Maybe today's just harder because I have more time to think about it." I got up and walked back to the beach where Jack was. Elizabeth followed. Jack was in the exact same spot that he was in when I left. The bottle that I had thrown at him earlier lay in the sand a few feet from him. I picked it up and looked at it.

"I thought you said you didn't drink," Jack said.

"I don't," I replied, "but I can't stand the taste of coconuts." Jack seemed to find this immensely amusing. As he laughed at me I tried a taste of the rum. "Bleagh!" I spit the rum out. It was a lot stronger than I expected it to be, and it tasted terrible.

"What was that for?" Jack exclaimed. "That was perfectly good rum!"

"It was nasty," I replied. "I don't see how you can drink this stuff."

"I don't see how you can not drink it," Jack argued.

"Well," I responded angrily, "I prefer not to let my self become a drunken lunatic." I walked a little ways down the beach. With an angry yell, I threw the bottle as hard as I could into the ocean. I noticed Elizabeth coming over to where I was. "We need to find a way off of this island," I said as she approached. I thought of the movie. "Maybe a signal fire or something, but I can't remain sane on island with only coconuts and rum."

"I know," Elizabeth said as she got an idea. "We could start some of the trees on fire and use the rum to build it up large enough to be seen for miles."

"Jack wouldn't let us burn the rum, though," I replied. "We'd have to start it after he falls asleep…or we could knock him out."

"From how frustrated you seemed with him earlier, I think you would kill him if you tried to knock him out."

"Darn," I said, regaining some of my sarcasm, "I was looking forward to hitting him. Then we wait for him to fall asleep. If he drinks like it looks like he's going to, it shouldn't take long."

"It shouldn't take too long," Elizabeth agreed, "but in the meantime, let's go back by Jack. If we spend too long over here, he'll think we're up to something." Elizabeth started heading back.

"But we are up to something," I commented as I followed her.

A few hours later, dark had fallen and we had a bonfire going. Elizabeth was putting on quite an act of being drunk, and I think, well I know that Jack really was drunk. Elizabeth had started teaching Jack the pirate song, and they had progressed to singing and dancing around the fire. With nothing better to do, I decided to join them. For the heck of it, I started singing "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" from the Lion King. By the time I was done with it, Jack and Elizabeth were sitting next to each other and staring at me.

"Welcome to my childhood," I said to them. "That's just a song that I've heard from when I was very young."

"That was different," Jack commented.

"Unlike the pirate song," I said, "I actually know most of the words to that one."

Elizabeth effectively distracted Jack from any further comments by saying, "It must be terrible for you to be trapped on this island again, Jack."

"Oh, yes," he replied and reached towards her. "But the company is infinitely better than the first time."

"Whoa, if you're gonna do that, I'm leaving," I stated.

"Mr. Sparrow," Elizabeth said as she pushed his hand away, "I don't think I've had enough rum to allow that kind of talk."

"I know exactly what you mean," he curled his mustache.

Elizabeth raised her bottle. "To freedom."

"To the Black Pearl." Jack downed the rest of his bottle. As he drank he fell slowly backwards until he was lying on his back, passed out from the rum.

"Is he out?" I asked.

"I think so," Elizabeth replied.

"Only one way to find out." I crept up to him and tried waking him in the same manner that he woke me back in Tortuga. I leaned towards him and yelled, "Whoa!" He didn't move. "He's out. What's the plan?"

"We move the fire towards the trees and use the rum to light the trees on fire. That ought to make a fire large enough to be seen for miles."

"Sounds like a party. Let's do this."

"Where'd you get your accent?" Elizabeth asked as we began to move the fire. "I've never heard anyone speak like you do."

"It's a Mid-western accent," I replied. "I come from Wisconsin."

"Where's that?"

"It doesn't exist yet. Well, the land that will eventually be Wisconsin exists. It's on the mainland, several hundred miles north, north-west of here."

"Oh, it's in the French territory, isn't it?"

I was trying to remember my colonial history. I know that Wisconsin was part of the Louisiana Territory and that the United States got it from the French, but I thought it belonged to Spain at one point in time, too. "Yeah, it's either France's or Spain's."

So we worked through what was left of the night on our signal fire. I have to admit that it was a lot of fun to throw crates and bottles of rum onto the fire and watch them explode. It felt like I was purging some sort of destructive force that had been building up inside me. Needless to say, the fire was a great way for me to end my 16th birthday. Jack on the other hand, was not so happy about the fire.

Morning came, and just as Elizabeth was throwing the last crate of rum on the fire we hear, "Not good! Not good! You burned all the food, the shade…the rum!" Jack had woken up and was protesting our signal fire.

"Yes, the rum is gone," Elizabeth responded.

"Why is the rum gone?" he demanded. I walked away as Elizabeth went into her "rum rant" but I was still close enough to hear Jack say "But why is the rum gone?" I burst out laughing and Jack glared at me. In frustration, he took out his pistol and pointed at Elizabeth. Then, he turned and pointed it at me since I was still laughing.

"Are you going to waste your only shot on me?" I asked between giggles.

"No," he said simply and walked away, muttering to himself.

"That was fun," I commented. I noticed a ship out in the bay and a longboat coming towards us. "Looks like he'll have to come with us, though. I doubt that they didn't see him."

"Unfortunately," Elizabeth replied, "but at least we're getting off of this island."

And that's Chapter 7. I'll try not to be too long in updating, but we all know what happened last time I said that. (Awkward laugh... Ooo look a panda!) Anyway, sorry again for the super super long wait and I'll try my best to get this story finished for you.