A/N: apparently it's a happy easter update. ) well it is Sunday…so. My easter present to you all. Happy Easter…D

This chappie kind of jumps around perspectives a bit, just to let you know what's going on around the rest of the Caribbean.

DISCLAIMER: do you think Disney'll give me the pirates in my Easter basket?

Chapter 7

"So you possess my heart," Davy Jones growled, looking down at the man in front of him.

Lord Cutler Beckett smiled calmly and patted his breast pocket.

"I do. And this means that you, Davy Jones, are now under my control."

Jones sniffed disapprovingly.

"I suppose I am, in a manner of speaking," he admitted. "What do you want of me?"

Still smiling, Beckett took a step back so that he didn't have to look up at the person he was issuing orders to (a fact that did not go unnoticed by Jones) and said, "Hunt down and personally kill Jack Sparrow and those on his ship. I want Sparrow's head as confirmation."

Jones gave him a wide smile.

"With pleasure."

… … …

Governor Swann felt a bead of sweat slide down his cheek and wiped it off on the pretext of relieving an itch.

It was stifling hot in Lord Beckett's office; even more so when Beckett himself was there, but fortunately the small man was not present. However, it did not make the governor feel much better that he was alone with Beckett's personal bodyguard and assassin. Mercer was giving him a piercing stare.

"Have you any idea what your daughter has been doing?" Mercer asked, his eyes never leaving their quarry.

Governor Swann swallowed.

"No," he answered in a voice rather too small for his liking. Mercer did not pass by this fact; on the contrary, he smiled emotionlessly at the governor.

"Only recently, she as murdered Jack Sparrow, gone to the end of the world to find the same man in the company of the pirate Hector Barbossa, has met with Davy Jones, and is currently sailing with Captains Barbossa and Sparrow and Mister William Turner," Mercer said matter-of-factly.

The governor's gaze faltered for a moment. His daughter was sailing with pirates? Sailing with them willingly? And with Hector Barbossa, the former and fearsome Captain of the Black Pearl, no less.

"Do you know what this means, Governor?" Mercer continued.

Governor Swann cleared his throat. Deciding to play along with Mercer's little game, he said innocently, "I've no idea."

"It means," said the assassin, "that your daughter may be hunted down and brought to court and hung like any common pirate."

Caught off guard, the governor gaped.

"No!"

Mercer smiled again. "Yes," he said.

Governor Swann quickly regained his composure. "Why have you brought me here?" he asked. "What do you want from me?"

"There is a way we might spare her from hanging," Mercer said, still smiling in that disconcerting way.

The governor looked up sharply.

"Since you asked Lord Beckett to do what he could for Elizabeth, you have had a say in what you did after he asked something of you," the assassin began carefully, smile fading back to his usual scowl. "Lord Beckett feels that some of the decisions you have made were not for the best. He wishes for you to give over full power; not questioning his orders, only carrying them out. For even if you think that what Lord Beckett requests is not for the best, it is."

The governor sighed and looked at the floor. There seemed no alternative unless he wanted to watch his daughter hang for piracy and murder. "Do what you can to secure my daughter's safety," he agreed reluctantly.

"Good," Mercer said. "Now…what we first need you to do…"

… … …

Elizabeth was beginning to resent the skill with which Barbossa wielded a sword. No matter how she concentrated on everything that Will had taught her and everything Barbossa had attempted to teach her, she never lasted more than a minute. It was on one of the days that she practiced swordplay with the pirate that Jack suddenly interrupted.

"You're doing it all wrong," he said. "Barbossa's a lot bigger and stronger than you are. You'll never last if you keep going at him straight on."

"Thanks," Elizabeth spat, stooping to pick up her cutlass.

She stood again and flew at Barbossa in frustration. Trying to follow Jack's advice, she dodged instead of parrying and received a shallow nick on her shoulder.

Jack clucked in impatience.

"I didn't say 'don't parry,' just don't try to drive him back, it won't work."

"You do it, then!" Elizabeth said, jamming her cutlass back into its sheath.

"Fine, then," Jack said. He unsheathed his sword in a smooth arc and engaged Barbossa with a sideways swing.

As Barbossa tried to back him into a corner, Jack sidled beneath the blade and attacked from a different angle. Barbossa, taking advantage, drove him back towards the bow, blacking escapes to different angles.

Catching Barbossa's blade with his, Jack swooped beneath and started the process over.

"You see, if you keep doing this," Jack called over his shoulder, "you'll eventually be able to get through his defenses and give him a few cuts to think about. Or whoever you're fighting," he amended carefully as Barbossa gave him a glare.

Jack put away his cutlass and returned to his position at the rail "Well, go on, I didn't do that for nothing, did I?" he said.

"No," Elizabeth returned, "you did it to frustrate me."

"Maybe I did," Jack said, sitting down and tugging at his bandage with a small grimace. "Thanks, now I've got a headache."

"No problem," Elizabeth growled.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "No need to snap," he said coolly, raising his eyebrows.

Elizabeth opened her mouth furiously to reply.

"Shut yer yammerin' pieholes, the both o' ye," Barbossa snapped wearily. "Elizabeth, over here. I want ye to try that out."

Jack watched through one eye as Elizabeth engaged Barbossa again, trying to find different angles before she was backed into a corner and failing.

"Enough," Barbossa said finally. "I can see I'm not getting' much more out of ye today."

"Fine," Elizabeth said slamming the sword into its sheath. "That is, unless Jack here isn't satisfied with my performance."

She rounded on Jack, eyes flashing. He smiled lazily.

"I enjoyed watching. It was very engaging." He made to get up-

Smack.

Burning pain shot through his head as his neck jerked sideways. A stream of violent curses hissed between his teeth.

"What the bloody hell was that for?" Jack snarled.

Elizabeth swore at him.

"You little-!"

"Now, now, no need for that language," Jack said.

Fortunately, Barbossa caught onto Elizabeth's wrist before she could slap Jack again. "Jack," he said in warning.

Laughing softly to himself, Jack ambled off, eyes barely slits and head cradled in one hand.

"Hold now, missy," Barbossa said. "He's tryin' to provoke ye."

"I don't care!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "That man – is the most infuriating man I have ever-"

"I know. But any more outbursts like that and I'm keepin' ye away from him."

"And what about Jack? You're letting him go around like this?"

"Aye."

"But why?" she asked exasperatedly.

"Because he's a right t' go around like this. He's just been killed by someone he thought was a friend, hasn't he?"

… … …

Admiral James Norrington was standing ramrod straight in Beckett's office waiting for orders, about an hour after Governor Swann had been there. He watched the shorter man pacing and wished he would hurry up. His back was starting to hurt.

Finally, Beckett wheeled around to face Norrington. "Take your crew and sail with Davy Jones, but on a separate ship," he ordered. "Make sure he follows my orders to the letter and remind him of our sway over him if you must. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Norrington said, thinking of the fact that 'do you understand' would have been replaced by 'savvy' had he still been on Jack Sparrow's ship and nearly laughing aloud.

"Good," Beckett said. "Go and ready the Dauntless."

"Yes, sir," Norrington repeated. He saluted and went to carry out Beckett's orders.

When he was out of the office, Norrington let himself slump into the more comfortable position he had adopted while serving on Jack's crew. Feeling slightly more relaxed, Norrington stepped out into the hot Caribbean sunlight.

… … …

"Jack, ye've really got to stop that."

Jack opened one eye.

"Why's that?"

"Because one, she beats herself up over this enough as it is, and two, seein' as I'm the only one on this ship that has no quarrel with her, it's me she comes complainin' to," Barbossa explained angrily. "And three, t' tell the truth, I'm getting' fed up with it myself."

"What's she got to complain about?" Jack asked. "Compared to what she did, I'm only a minor annoyance. What can she possibly complain to you about?"

"She knows what happened before ye woke up, Jack," Barbossa said. He paused to allow his words to sink in. As he had expected, Jack looked surprised, and almost angry.

"She's not told me what it is, and I've not asked her, but she knows. That's how we found ye."

Jack stared.

"No, I'm not tellin' ye how she knows, so don't ask," Barbossa said firmly. "I suggest ye either lay off a bit or find out what she knows."

Jack blinked and recovered his cool composure. "Yes," he said. "Yes, Great Psychiatrist, I shall surely do as you say, for you are all-knowing of the subject of being in hell…"

"I was killed by someone I thought was on my side, too, Jack, remember?" Barbossa reminded him, giving a calm smile. "I remember. You're not the only one who's been there, believe me."

"I'd forgotten," Jack snapped.

Barbossa sniffed and narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

"Well lucky fer ye."

… … …

Nearly an hour later, Jack decided to take Barbossa up on his advice.

Though he shuddered to do it, he sought out Elizabeth and led her up on deck. For a few minutes they merely look at each other through narrowed eyes, arms folded. Jack finally broke the silence.

"What do you know?" he asked.

"About what?" Elizabeth said.

"World's End."

"Only what I saw from the boat. And that Davy Jones is the gate keeper, so to speak," she added. "Why?"

"That's not what I was talking about," Jack said. "You know that wasn't what I was talking about."

"I don't know anything."

He narrowed his eyes.

"That's not what I heard."

"Whoever told you I knew something was lying," Elizabeth said smoothly.

"Good," Jack said. He turned to walk away.

"Jack, wait," Elizabeth called softly.

Jack swiveled around on his heel.

"What?"

"It must have been terrible for you to be trapped on that island," Elizabeth said quietly, choosing her words deliberately.

Jack didn't say anything. He was giving her a level stare.

"I could care less whether you forgive me or not at the moment. I just want you to hear me out," she said. "I know that what happened on the island must have been bad, and I only wanted to say that I'm sorry-"

"You just said you hadn't the faintest idea what happened there," Jack said in low tones.

"Well, yes, I…"

"Then how would you know that it was bad?"

"When you woke up-"

"You've hardly the right to be apologizing, you don't even know what you did!" he pointed out. "You don't know anything!"

"I know everything, all right, Jack?" Elizabeth admitted loudly. "I know how the kraken spit you out on that beach, I know all you could do was lay there and stare at your rings, or the beads in your hair, or the sand, I know that you couldn't even move, I know it all, I know everything that happened!"

"Oh, really?" Jack said, his voice now dangerously. Low. "And what happened in between, when you woke up in the middle of the night and went crying to Barbossa? What happened when you were awake during the day? You don't know the bloody half of it. You don't know how it is lying there going mad and knowing you were the entire time. Not the faintest clue. So until you do know, I suggest you don't even attempt talking about this."

"Jack, I didn't know…" Elizabeth said helplessly.

"That's my point, you imbecile," Jack growled. He stalked off in a fury and left Elizabeth standing there dumbstruck.

A/N: happy birthday. Geez, this was 7 pages long on word. Hope you like it. Leave me some love. )