"Jack?"

"Uh-huh…" he said distractedly, running his thumb along the edge of his compass. He wasn't looking at me. His eyes were resting on the street below the window, but I knew he wasn't focussed on it or taking it in. Something was definitely wrong and it had been for the past few days.

"Where are we going?" he looked up at me.

"What?"

"Where are we going?" I repeated. "What's our plan?" He watched me sit down opposite him. "We've been here almost a week now and we don't seem to be headed anywhere."

I felt as if my sentence had such a heavy weighting that it could break something around us. He looked away from me again and back to the streets of Tortuga which always seemed to look grimier in the cold light of day. And more sick-covered too. I leant forward slightly to read his face and I knew at once that he didn't know. "The Pearl…" he said. "Or the Fountain of Youth…"

"The Fountain of what?"

"Youth," he repeated. I raised an eyebrow.

"Yet another way to live forever?" I questioned.

He leant back, reached out behind him and pulled out yet another set of charts. "I know the way and everything." His face lit up and he smiled. "Brilliant, isn't it?"

I didn't think so. I could see how excited the prospect made him and I wondered why it didn't make me feel the same. I narrowed my eyes and sighed. "What's the catch?"

"What makes you think there's a catch?"

"There is always a catch, Jack. Even with Jones there was a job to do and he was split from Calypso for ten years. Barbossa's immortality didn't exactly go to plan now did it? So, go on tell me the catch and if it involves ten years of separation or a lifetime of being starving and looking like a member of the undead you can count me out because I am not wandering around with my skeleton on full display. Life is too short for that!"

"Technically," Jack's mouth twitched in his effort not to laugh. I knew what was coming. "If you were immortal life wouldn't be too short at all, love."

"Jack…" I warned him. Sometimes it was like talking to a child.

"What," he smiled innocently and even though he was frustrating me it's hard to resist that smile. "It's just a little hard to get to…"

"How hard?" I pressed.

"Well, it's made even harder by the fact that we don't have a ship," he pointed out. I noticed that it was just a way of side-stepping the question, but for the time being I let it slip.

"So we go after the Pearl?" I asked. He looked like he was searching for a way to side-step that too and I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Yes," he said slowly as if it was something he had only just decided on the answer himself. I took a deep breath so I didn't snap at him.

"You could have decided on that six days ago!" I huffed.

"Don't know where it is," he said.

"Use your bloody Compass!"

He started sulking and scowled at his compass. He had a wonderful knack for picking fights with inanimate objects. "It's broken."

"What?"

"Well it must be. It's still pointing to you, love. It's still telling me that I want you."

I frowned. "But… but you've got me."

"I know that!" he sounded frustrated. "It doesn't know that!" He thumped the top of the compass before shoving it away from him. "Stupid thing," he muttered, still sulking with it. I stared at the Compass with as much apprehension as if I was waiting for it to talk. I felt like it was staring back at me. It couldn't be broken. It had never been wrong before. There was only one time where Jack had claimed it to be broken.

"How did you fix it last time?" I asked. He stopped his furious glaring and looked up at me in utter bewilderment.

"There hasn't been a last time," he looked at me like I was an idiot. "This is the first time it's happened."

"But the time before this time."

He blinked at me. "This is the first time it's happened," he repeated. "Ergo, there has been no time before this one."

I shook my head around to make this information go in. "No," I said, adamant that I was right. "When you were trying to find the heart and the needle just kept spinning and you said it was because you were between things, well is it…" His smile stopped me from talking.

"You never figured it out did you?" he laughed.

I felt myself flare up immediately, "You wouldn't tell me!" His smile widened and I to refrain fro punching him. Sometimes he annoyed me so much I hated him and wondered why I was in love with him in the first place. "I asked you and you wouldn't tell me or Elizabeth and she thought it was because you…"

I stopped talking, but my mouth stayed open. His smile no longer made me want to kick him. He pushed back his chair and stood up. He walked around the table and crouched down next to my chair to look me in the eye. "Because I was in love," he finished my sentence on Elizabeth's prediction even though we had never discussed it. I nodded silently. His hand brushed against my cheek. "It was you, Izzy, even then, even though I wouldn't admit it, least of all to myself, the Compass tried to tell me it was you."

And just like that he had gone from making me want to punch him to making me want to kiss him. Was there anyone more perfect than him? I doubted it. And then I felt guilty. Guilty because the Compass was always right, it never lied even when Jack did. It wasn't broken. Something I was doing, or had done was making Jack feel like I wasn't his. Even if he wouldn't say it out loud he clearly doubted how much I loved him. Was this because I couldn't sleep with him? I wanted to, but I knew it would feel wrong.

Maybe I was being selfish.

"I love you so much," I whispered to him, just so he knew. His hand fisted in my hair as he caught my lips in his. My hands rested on his shoulders and with one of his slipped around my waist he pulled my gently to my feet. He drew my body closer before moving his lips to my forehead and hugging me tightly to him. I hugged him back, trying to tell him without words that I was, despite his apparent doubts, utterly and completely his.

"Uh-oh," he said over my shoulder and I felt him grimace. I pulled back to look him in the eye.

"What is it?"

He looked as if someone had been sick in his mouth and then offered to pull every one of his teeth and nails out to compensate for it. "I know that ship."

I turned to the window. Jack shifted to wrap his arms around me from behind and bent slightly to rest his chin on my shoulder. I smiled as his cheek touched mine; it was such a safe place to be. It was a peaceful contrast to the hectic shambles our lives seemed to disintegrate into every so often. I had a feeling that Jack's 'Uh-oh' was going to be the next thing break the tranquillity. Good thing we were used to it. I braced myself, but found that I didn't mind what was about to happen. Whatever it was we would be able to get through it. We always could. "What ship is it?"
I had scanned the ships in Tortuga and found none I knew. His breath tickled my cheek as he sighed. "It's me dad's".

"What's so bad about that?" I turned my head to look at him. "He could help us get the Pearl back."

He looked thoughtful. "That's true..." he brightened up. "Let's go and see if he will." Letting go of me and picking up his coat he paused. "Don't tell him about the Fountain of Youth, love."

This immendiately made me feel nervous again. I fought to keep the nerves from showing in my voice. "Why?"

"It's not something he would approve of," said Jack. This didn't make me feel any better. From what I had met of Teague he seemed to know what he was talking about and if he felt that there was a good reason of us not to go to the Fountain then maybe we shouldn't go. It brought back all my doubts about the Fountain and the quest for immortality. I decide right there and then that if the end did not justify the means then I would refuse point-blank to go with him. He would have to choose between immortality and me.

I honestly couldn't say which I thought he'd choose.