Disclaimer: Its fifteen men on a dead man's chest, not thirteen or sixteen or whatever other '-teen' number exists. 15!

A/N: Yay another long one! Took a couple of kicks for certain parts of the dialogue to hold, which is why I took so long to write it.

Squirrel stared down the length of her sword, concentrating on the way the steel was balanced in her hand. She barely paid any heed to the way she stood, balanced on her left leg, her other leg stretched straight behind her in the opposite direction to her outstretched arm. She stood like a 'T', her sword arm and her left leg forming the crossbar of the letter. Slowly, she rolled her spine until she stood back upright, then braced her feet on the deck, pulling her sword back until the hilt brushed her cheek, while pushing her left arm forward, palm out, and crouched backwards, all the weight on her right leg. After holding this pose a moment longer, she lunged forward, shifting all her weight forward to her left foot, sword piercing the air in front of her, then let the momentum spin her around to the left, sword carving the air as she spun, and then lifting and falling as she returned to her original position. Squirrel swung her left arm back, like a dancer's, as she finished the swing, then held the pose a moment before dropping both arms and taking a deep breath. It had taken barely a moment for her to complete that whole exercise, and she'd been moving slowly.

What she was doing unnerved her - she knew that she could easily kill someone with moves like she'd just done, if she moved fast enough. After a moment to pause, Squirrel drew her dagger in her left hand, closed her eyes, and with both weapons held tightly, went through the motions of tai qi, carefully and gracefully, adapting every instance of the exercise to suit the blades she held in her hands. She moved carefully, gracefully, her steps and motions as fluid and slow as the motion of her blades as they curved through the air. As she moved, the creases on her forehead smoothed out, and she found she was able to breathe easier as every minute passed. Just as she had on that hill in Singapore one morning - how long ago it seemed now - she found herself calming, feeling a little more level-headed. The slow motions, paired with the late evening air, settled her. But there was no changing the fact she was holding a blade in each hand, nor that there were ships behind them, just out of sight over the horizon.

There was a storm coming. She could feel it in the air above her.

"Intristin'," a familiar voice woke her from her thoughts. "Very intristin', luv. Not seen anythin' like that before."

Squirrel lowered her blades and turned to face the laconic smile of Jack, the red knot and tassel tied to her dagger catching around her wrist for a moment. "Just something I picked up on my travels," she said, looking down at her dagger, fiddling with the string hanging off it just for something to do. "I don't know if it'll be any use." She tucked the small blade back in its sheath, smoothed her fingers over it, ran the red threads through her grip.

Jack had his sword drawn. He lifted it now, his free hand curling in the air behind him. "Then let's find out, shall we?"

Squirrel smiled, smirked, and leapt at him, a blur of blue and brown. Jack gave a woof of surprise and ducked aside, blade swinging limply and a moment too late in her direction. Squirrel was the faster, and shifted her weight from foot to foot as she ducked and bobbed and swivelled, leaping and jumping even as she swung and thrust and flicked her blade. As the two of them moved, Squirrel could hear a song in her head. It was a familiar tune, but not any she could put a name to. It was a song she'd often heard through the timbers of the Pearl, while at her chores or in the crow's nest with the wind in her hair. It was strong and wild, and Squirrel's blood surged and her blows got surer and stronger with the tune.

Jack turned and fled, hiding behind the mast. After a moment, he peered around, eyes wide. "I thought you said this was practice," he blinked at her.

Squirrel smothered a smile as she took an en guarde position. "It is."

"But you… you're…"

She smirked. "I'm what, Jack?"

He growled and came out from behind the mast. "No, no. Nothing." He lifted his sword, mirroring her stance. "I was just… just letting you warm up, that's all."

"Very kind of you, captain," she closed her eyes, "But if you're not going to do this properly, I'll find someone else to spar with." She opened her eyes just in time to see Jack charging at her, and this time she was on the defensive. She'd expected him to swing at her like he was holding a club. After all, that was what she was used to seeing him do. But he had a deceptively decent amount of skill with the blade. Typical, she thought briefly as she danced back and forth with him, He's always more than he appears. He still needs practice, though.

The song started up again. The two blades clashed and ground against each other. Squirrel back-flipped, rolled to the side, and leapt back to her feet. She tilted her head, considering Jack a moment; Jack did the same. They circled, warily, around the deck, watching and waiting. Then they both stilled… and leapt again. Jack slashed the air three times, and Squirrel parried each blow. Then Squirrel turned her blade, and pushed up, down from the left and up from the right - short, sharp blows - while Jack swayed on his feet and parried her blows. They pulled back and circled again, then Jack moved forward, forward, forward, his blade held before him and one arm behind. Squirrel watched and waited, letting him push her back, blocking and slapping his blade aside as she skittered back on her toes. Suddenly, she ducked, bobbed enough to make him readjust his aim, then leapt forward towards him when his arm went wide. Jack wasn't able to bring his sword up fast enough. She smiled, prodded his forehead with the tip of her sword, then stepped back.

"Well," Jack nodded, flinching back from her, "You know what you're doing. I'll give you that." He looked nonchalantly across the deck a moment, rubbing the fingernails of his left hand on his coat, while his sword hung limp in his right. "Excellent form. And, as for your footwork…"

Squirrel leapt again, and whatever Jack was going to say was lost as he yelped and brought his sword up to parry the blow. Squirrel smiled sweetly over the crossed blades.

Jack looked impressed. "Nice, luv. For a moment there, I was thinking you'd leaned how to fight from Turner."

Squirrel lowered her blade and stepped aside. "Only partially."

"Ah." He nodded. "Thought so. You've got the same kind of rhythm, only… not."

"Well, I did learn from elsewhere." Squirrel took one of her tai qi poses - weight on her bended right leg, sword readied up by her face, palm facing Jack - and smiled, "And, Hector did help a little, too."

Jack snorted and rolled his eyes. "Good for him," he muttered.

"What? It's not like you ever thought to give me lessons."

"I'll learn you good right now," he growled, and leapt at her. There was steeliness to his eyes, but still gold in his grin. Squirrel endured Jack's blows, parrying and deflecting them one by one, letting him push her back. There were crates not two steps away. Let's see what he thinks of this.

Jack swung twice, a lazy but forceful pair of blows; Squirrel jumped up and back onto the crates, then jumped again, flipping forward over Jack's head, landed, and turned with a 'hah!' and slapped his back with the flat of her blade. Jack winced as he turned around.

"Well, I can see what you learned from Hector."

"No," she grinned, straightening up, "That was all me." She felt the wind change, and glanced up. She couldn't tell in the darkness of night, but there was definitely cloud cover. She couldn't see the stars or the moon any more. The storm was getting closer.

Jack huffed. "You do know I'm just going easy on you because I like you."

Squirrel laughed. "Face it, Jack. You're a pathetic swordsman."

His eyebrows wriggled and his eyes were smoky. "Is that more metaphor, darlin', or…?" She swung her sword, and Jack barely managed to mince out of its arc.

"I'm a girl," Squirrel told him, "And I fight better than you."

Jack stepped and stepped and stepped, sword swinging in the air before him. Squirrel parried, as she had done twice before, but found that Jack wasn't where he was supposed to be. She turned her head, eyes widening, as Jack spun on his feet, ducked below her blade and around her arm. She closed her eyes and chuckled as she felt him prod her forehead with the tip of his sword.

"You don't fight better," he purred, "You just fight faster. And, in case you didn't notice, I'm pretty flexible." His grin turned from triumphant to teasing. "Course, you wouldn't know just how flexible…"

She brushed his sword away from her face and turned her back on him. "So," she laughed, "That's how you fight? By stealing moves from your opponents?"

"Works for me," Jack grinned at her, tapping his sword against his palm. "Pirate, remember? So, as for whether or not you're better than me, I'd say… no. Because no matter how good you are," he spread both arms, holding his body forward, "I'm a mirror."

"Well, that's…" She laughed again, shaking her head. "Well, if that's what works for you." She sighed, then looked back to face him. "So now you know my technique."

"Oh, yes," he grinned back, readying his sword for another round. "Thanks for teaching me. That trick could come in handy."

"You're welcome," she said dryly, as she and he both charged again, "Sometimes it's amazing what you can learn from a virgin."

Jack gaped and staggered. Squirrel stepped aside to let him reel his way to regaining his balance, and carefully arranged her face into a placid mask. Halfway across the deck, Jack turned back and looked suspiciously at her, sword readied in case she tried something. Squirrel lifted hers in challenge, but didn't move from where she stood.

"Is that…" He smiled, half in uncertainty and half in amusement, "Is that more metaphor, darlin'?

"Who's using metaphor?" she smiled pleasantly. After a moment, she dissolved into giggles, her face red, at the look on his face. "Well?" she lifted her sword again, grinning and blushing still, "When you're ready."

"Wait," Jack held up a hand, trying to grasp the concept from the air, "Wait a minute. Are you really…?"

"I don't have all evening, Jack," she told him calmly. "But to answer your question, yes. Yes, I am."

"Huh." He smirked.

Squirrel leapt again, and he didn't even flinch as he re-entered the fight still grinning, with Squirrel struggling to regain her mask. She danced and stepped and twirled, her feet light and dancing to the tune of the Pearl while her blade flashed and twisted and carved gracefully through the air. Jack, however, seemed to be dancing to a different beat. While he was moving just as certain as she was, Jack stepped to a three-four time, a strange swaying beat that seemed almost a waltz, but at the same time was derivative of his drunken swagger. Squirrel watched Jack carefully, even as they danced together, and thought she heard a different song in the air. It was the old drunken shuffle of a tune she knew to be Jack's own. She'd even written words to them, long ago, back when he alone had the power to make her blush and stammer into incoherence. Two different songs were being danced to here. And yet they were so alike, so similar, so part of each other, it would have been hard to distinguish the two. One song of the ship, and one of its captain; one song of the wind, and one of the sea.

"You move pretty well. Like you're dancing, almost."

"I have a song worth dancing to." She tapped her foot, indicating the planking beneath them. "Her song."

He grinned and swayed out of the swish of steel. "Don't you have a song of your own?"

"I… I don't know." Squirrel paused a moment, thinking. "I don't think I do." She smiled and gestured with her blade. "You do, though."

"Do I?" He lowered his blade and tilted his head, curious.

Squirrel hummed a little of the tune, and found herself almost swaying along with it. Then, impulsively, she added a new phrase to the song she'd written a long time ago. "No matter the troubles he finds himself in, you can always be sure that he'll land on his feet…"

Jack laughed softly. "Yeah, that sounds like me." He tilted his head the other way, looking coy now. "What would yours be, I wonder?"

Squirrel thought about it, a smile to her lips. What would my song be? A Tortugan hornpipe, she thought, Only with none of its forced cheerfulness or thoughtless gaiety. Her song would be fast, like she was, but graceful. A pirate's jig, a joyful flight, a song of love and adventure with just a hint of the distant, fading shadows. Light and brave and unbound and free. She could all but hear it, and wondered why she'd never even thought to imagine it before.

She saw Jack watching her, smiling; she smiled back. "Well, whatever my song," she murmured, lifting her sword again, "I hope it comes in handy for the dance." Squirrel's eyes flicked to the left; she spun and stabbed out at empty space. "Behind you, Jack!" She called, as she drew back her arms and swung savagely at another invisible opponent. Jack did the same, chuckling to himself. They exchanged grins in the darkness, and stood back to back a moment, considering the horde of Beckett's men and Jones' crew that surrounded them incorporeally. Then they leapt to the attack, fighting the air rather than crossing blades with each other.

"He's got his gun on you!"

"There's two to your left!"

"I'll distract him, you knock him out!"

"I need help over here!"

"Look out!"

"Hah-hah! Take that!"

Squirrel was panting and her blood was singing to the roaring sound of the songs; she could feel the Pearl's loudest of all, but moved to the deep strains of Jack's song as well. And, faintly, she heard the strains of a violin, punctuated by a light fluting melody, the reel that was hers.

One by one, the invisible attackers fell. But as the battle grew furious and the songs came faster, it became harder and harder to slay the invisible spectres. Jack and Squirrel were surrounded, and it was getting more difficult to swing the blades. They lashed out with their fists and their daggers, but were slowly hemmed in by bayonets and beastly clawed weapons. We're trapped. Squirrel's eyes flickered as she stood back to back with her captain, blade at the ready. We need to push them back. She leapt forward, slashing, and then knew exactly what needed to be done.

"Arm!"

Jack barely had time to turn and offer a 'what?' before Squirrel leapt at him. Her left arm linked through his, and the momentum of her leap spun the pair of them around. Jack gave a yell, then crowed, understanding what she was doing, and dug his heels into the deck. He put his weight down, and turned, helping swing Squirrel through the air. Squirrel's heel cracked against a jaw, sending one of their assailants flying; Jack's sword slashed out at anyone who thought to duck under the flying girl and cut them down. Squirrel's own sword sliced through the throat of a man who dodged her kicking feet. For a moment, the circle was pushed back.

"Nice!" Jack cheered, as Squirrel skipped down out of the air. "Very nice, luv!" Squirrel readied her sword, face hard, but couldn't help but feel proud of herself. She grinned at him; he grinned back. "Us two make a great team."

"… Yes. It seems we do."

The wind blew suddenly. The sails rippled, whispering, and the lantern hanging nearby guttered out, casting longer shadows across the darkness. But it was Jack's words, and not the wind, that silenced the songs in her head. Squirrel stepped back and lowered her sword. Jack held his at the ready a moment longer, his eyes bright in the darkness, but as the moments stretched on, he, too, lowered his sword. He looked at her, expectant and confused. "Something the matter, darlin'?"

Squirrel looked down at her feet a moment. "A few things, captain." She fell mute, not knowing how to speak about something so painful.

He looked at her, face unreadable. "You still worried about Elizabeth?"

Squirrel opened her mouth, and closed it again. Her eyes turned to the sea and the cloudy night sky. How was she supposed to tell him? This wasn't as hard as the night she'd said goodbye, but the words just weren't coming at all this time.

Jack misread her silence for an answer. He sighed. "Luv, what happened to Miss Swann is… unfair. But life never runs smooth. There are just some things…" He took off his hat and scratched his head with the same hand before replacing it. "I agreed with Barbossa at the time, just 'coz it were what she deserved. But I think… I don't think young Bess is going to give up without a fight. She may have left on her own decision, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't going to let Sao Feng have his merry way with her. She's a lot tougher - and a lot smarter - than she lets other people think."

"Sounds like you two have a great deal in common." Squirrel kept her eyes down. "You two would have been a good match."

Jack scoffed violently. "Do I need to remind you that she's the one who killed me in the first place?" Then he sighed again. "No. We're too alike, her and me, she and I. It wouldn't have worked 'tween us. Too much the same."

"You say that, Jack," Squirrel glanced up at him with deep eyes. "But how am I supposed to believe you?"

Jack raised an eyebrow at her. "I think you do," he said, smiling a little. "You just like fightin' with me for fightin's sake." She gave a strained smile back to him. He wasn't fooled. "Listen, luv, just because Miss Swann an' me have a few characteristics similar, doesn't make us destined to be. If anything…" His smile widened coyly, "Similarities can be boring. Where's the fun in consortin' with a mirror? I like a little difference." He lowered his head, and looked smokily, meaningfully, through his kohl at her.

Squirrel laughed faintly, sadly, and touched the coin at her throat. "Sometimes there's too much of a difference, Jack." She looked up through the rigging, and felt a drop of rain land on her forehead.

"Not necessarily, darlin'."

She raised an eyebrow, and changed the focus of the conversation quickly, before she felt her heart thundering in her ears again. "So you think canny Elizabeth and naïve Will Turner are the better match?"

Jack shook a lazy finger at her. "Will Turner isn't always stupid, and Miss Swann isn't always the clever clogs she can be. Don't generalise." He grinned. "But yes, that's the way it is."

"'The way it is'." She gave a short snatch of bitter laughter, then half-turned from him. "Such a shame, then, that she and Will can't ever have their happy ending now."

Jack was silent.

Squirrel took a breath, looking out over the inky water. "No doubt you noticed that Sam and I came back in a boat."

Jack nodded, slowly, setting his beads clinking softly. "I did notice."

She turned to look at him. "So what do you think of that?"

"I don't follow you, luv." But his eyes flitted away, and his body swayed awkwardly. The sword point swung over the deck in nervous circles.

"It means I was picked up by a ship." She watched him nod, saw through his forced nonchalance. "Do I even need to make you guess as to the name of the ship I would risk death escaping from?" The air overhead shifted again, and got a little colder. A few drops of rain splattered down on the deck, heralds for what was to come.

There was no merriment in Jack's smile. "So Turner's trail did lead to Beckett after all. And if you're back it means… he's a day behind. Aye?"

"Ke neng."1 She swung the point of her sword listlessly over her toes. "If we're lucky."

"Lucky." Jack looked out over the water, and scoffed softly. "Given what you think about luck…"

"Beckett had some interesting things to say about you."

He looked at her, and shifted from foot to foot. Squirrel gave him a moment, looking away across at the building clouds. When she looked back, Jack was just as guarded as she had expected him to be.

"All lies, luv. Don't believe a word of them. Unless, of course, he was talking about how dashingly wonderful I am, in which case…"

"Every time I think I have you figured, Jack Sparrow," Squirrel said softly, "You always disappoint."

There was a sour twist to his lips. "Look, what happened 'tween me and Beckett was a long time ago. I've made mistakes, and so's he. But that's no reason for you to think any less of me. 'S all in the past."

Squirrel fixed him with her eyes. "What, precisely, would Beckett have said about you that would make me think less of you?"

Jack licked his lips, his teeth flashing like an animal's for a moment. "Wasn't born a pirate, luv," he murmured. "Few men are." He sighed shortly. "Done a great deal many things I'm ashamed of before I raised a black flag of me own."

"I didn't hear a word of your history, Jack Sparrow." She struggled to keep the tremor from her voice. "It's the present and the future that I'm talking about." She let the silence hang between them, as a few more drops of rain fell from above. She needed time to draw breath, time to put the hurt she felt into words which could best convey it. "You made a deal with him, Jack. You made a deal with Cutler Beckett to betray the Brethren Court."

"Oh." His fingers curled as he hooked his thumbs into his belt, "That." He sighed, then nodded. "Well, yes, that would be disappointing."

"Dammit, Jack…" She gripped her hands into fists, and her eyes started to sting. "How could you?"

He shrugged. "Someone has to set a bad example."

"That's not funny."

"Do I look like I'm laughing?" His face was set and expressionless.

She couldn't step closer, didn't want to even be near him, but wanted to. "Then why did you do it?" She whispered, pleading.

Jack's eyes roved, and he swayed where he stood. A man with a dangerous secret. "You tell me," his words were almost a challenge. "You've a gift for figuring out puzzles of all kinds. And I know you say you can't read me, but there are times when I'm not that hard to figure out." His eyes were serious, unblinking. "So tell me: why do you think I'd do it?"

Squirrel frowned, surprised by the way he'd thrown it back to her. She looked around for a moment, as though to find the answer in the surrounding area. And, in a way, she did. She looked to where she'd stood the night one of Jones' crewmen had slipped an arm around her waist and a hand around her throat. She looked to where Jack and Jones had faced off and made their bargain. To the port side, where the Dutchman had sailed off into the night. She closed her eyes, purging the images from her mind. Then, she looked back to the man standing opposite her.

"You're doing it again," she murmured, closing her eyes and gripping the hilt of her sword tight. "Another one of those bargains… Others' lives in exchange for you and your safety." She stared at her feet, fighting bitter disappointment and anger both, and her words hurried out of her mouth like charging soldiers. "You'd gladly give us - your crew, as well as all the pirates of the world - over to Beckett and to certain death, just so you could get out of harm's way. Once more, you'd let everyone else pay your wages while you get off scot-free. This is just like last time, just like…" She halted, the realisation suddenly striking her like a hammer. "… before."

Jack tilted his head, eyebrow quirking and his lips pressing back a slight curve, and waited.

Squirrel stared at him, trying not to gape. Just like before. Jack Sparrow hadn't gone to Tortuga to collect ninety-nine souls for Jones, but did so for time to think and lay a new course, to try and find an escape. Jack had no intention of handing over those men; he just needed them for appearance's sake. He was going to find some way around his deal, his bargain. That was what he'd done.

And what he was doing now.

"If you have no intention of keeping your deal with Beckett," she frowned at him, incredulous, relieved and almost delighted, "Why did you make one in the first place?"

He was grinning now, now that he knew she was back on his side. "Well, why not? I'm an opportunistic cad with a selfish streak wide enough to drive a cart through." He winked.

"But to agree to betray the Court?"

"Only thing that would get Beckett in range of our guns, luv." He tilted his head again. "Wouldn't you say?"

She thought back to Beckett's cold eyes, and his unspoken threat about her fate, and shuddered. "Yes. It would." Jack grinned at her, but she wouldn't be reassured just yet. "But why? What are you trying to accomplish?"

He swayed idly back and forth where he stood. "What, getting back at Beckett's not good enough for you? Here I was thinking I was doing something you'd be proud of."

"You're not that altruistic." She swung her sword in careful, measured arcs. "It's your revenge, rather than justice."

"Justice or revenge, what does it matter? Waters'll be free of him, and we can all sleep easy." He tilted his head, concerned. "Unless you'd rather spare his life?"

Squirrel thought back to those spirits in the water, to those souls in boats. As much as she endorsed mercy, she couldn't imagine Beckett would be grateful for such a thing. There'd be more folk in the water between worlds if that man was allowed to go free. "He's killed men, women and children."

"So have us pirates." Squirrel looked up at Jack, and saw him watching her. Utterly serious, and twice as handsome for it. "We're on the wrong side of the law to be claimin' the moral high ground, luv." He shrugged, unashamed but awkward at the same time.

She nodded. "But that doesn't mean that what he's doing isn't wrong."

"'Course not."

She closed her eyes and followed the thread of conversation back to where it had been frayed. "But you still haven't told me why, Jack. Why this façade? Why do all this? What are you trying to achieve?"

Jack turned his head away and looked down at his feet. "You tell me," he murmured. And, for the second time in the evening, Squirrel put together the pieces of the puzzle that was Captain Jack Sparrow.

What he wanted, more than anything in the world, was freedom. That one thing he wanted but could never hold onto, because he was always being chased or caged or obligated… Freedom. His precious freedom. And he'd died once already, and been locked in a cage from which there would have been no escape. The worst fate a man can bring upon himself, stretching on forever. For Jack Sparrow, that meant captivity. The words from their farewell echoed in Squirrel's mind. To lose it all would be like dying. She'd intended to leave Jack to find her freedom, and had never once stopped to think that he was seeking the very same thing.

Jack kicked at the deck, then looked up at the clouds in the darkened sky. "Like I said," he whispered, "There are times I'm not so hard to figure out." He smiled thinly at her, eyes apologetic. "You just need to stop thinking I'm something that I'm not for a minute."

Her words were a whisper, a strange and almost frightening realisation as she was able to read him for one small moment. "You're afraid to die?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" He spread his hands, the sword dangling lazily in the air as he offered the gesture to her. But his eyes were dark and serious, and glistened in the shadows, despite the carelessness of his motions. "Death was unpleasant. The afterlife even more so." His voice went hard. "I'm not going through that again."

"Everyone dies, Jack."

He held up a finger. "Not necessarily." He turned his hand around and examined his nails. There was that same look on his face that had been there the night Elizabeth's father had died. "What if, for instance, there was a means for me to live forever?"

Squirrel felt cold, all over and all of a sudden, as though she'd been plunged into an icy sea. The heart. He means to stab the heart. "No," she said, an expulsion of sound more than a word or a plea or a cry.

Jack either didn't hear her, or he ignored her. "To sail the seas forever…" His eyes went distant. "To be unbound to anyone or anything, to be free to follow the wind and the tide and the stars to every corner of the globe… And to know that time will never catch up with me?" He smiled, faintly, dreamily, sadly. "That's worth livin' for. That's worth givin' it all up for."

Squirrel's tongue felt like a piece of lead, and her body like cold marble. She could feel her own breath passing in and out between her open lips, and that was the only proof she had for herself that she was still alive. "But… Jack…"

He smiled amiably out to the distance. "Yeah, I know. It's not a perfect plan. Still some kinks to iron out. Like the ferryin' of souls bit. But 'tween you and me, I figure something will get figured out." He shrugged. "So there you have it. The answer to 'why'. I'm making a deal with Beckett so's I can get my revenge on him, as well as to make it so I can live forever. All a neat little package, tied off with string." He smiled, pleased with himself, then looked to her, expecting to see the same thing.

But she was unmoving, gaping like a dead fish, her eyes wide and unseeing. Her blood roared cold through her ears to the sound of the Kraken's mocking heartbeat - no, not the Kraken's heart, but Jones' - and she shivered. She shivered and shook all over. She had to force the words out. "You're going to stab the heart?"

He frowned a moment, then nodded. "Two birds with one stone, as I said. And, you got to admit, livin' forever ain't such a bad thing, given the right circumstances." He raised an eyebrow at squirrel's frightened face. "For some people, at least." Then he sighed heavily, and looked around the Pearl. "There will be a fair few downsides, o' course. Losing this lovely lady, for one." He put his hand against the mast and stroked the wood fondly. "But there's always…"

"Always a cost for what we want most," Squirrel finished, remembering Tia's words, remembering Barbossa's words, remembering her own.

Jack turned back to look at her, smiling softly. "True enough."

She had to close her eyes. She licked her lips and tried to breathe. With every breath, breathing became a little easier, and she felt a little less cold. She tried to tell herself it was better this way; she felt like a coward for even thinking like that. She told herself she should stop him; she knew that he'd never forgive her if she did. She had a promise to keep; she knew she couldn't keep it, and didn't intend to try.

Why do you always make me feel like this, Jack? She sighed. I can never win. I want this to be a good thing, I want to be happy for you, but I… I still can't… can't bring myself to feel that.

Jack's boots moved across the deck. Squirrel felt opened her eyes, and found her face inches from his.

"If I'm going to be the Dutchman's new captain," he said softly, "I'm going to need someone to take care of the Pearl for me. Someone I can trust won't let her… be anything than what she is." Jack studied Squirrel, searching both her eyes. "Think you're up to that, Song-shoe Chwan-sung?"

The storm broke overhead, and cool rain cascaded down on them both. Squirrel continued to stare at Jack, her heart beating within her, weighing as heavy and solid as she secret she kept. Water dripped through her hair, down her face, turning the blue of her shirt a darker hue and making it cling to her.

Squirrel stared at him, eyes stinging. "Jack…"

Jack didn't even seem to be getting wet. The soft rain barely seemed to touch him. "As of late, you seem to have become as delicate as old leather." He smiled, a brief flash of gold like the flicker of a star. "But I know you, luv. You've still got the same eyes you had the day you cam aboard. You'll take care of her."

"But I'm a girl," she gave a trembling smile, a short bark of laughter. "I can't be captain. Remember?"

"Sure you can, luv." He punched her lightly in the shoulder. "I know you can." He waited a moment for her answer.

She recalled that day after Jack had died, when she had asked Barbossa what the cost for bringing back Jack would be, she'd already known the answer. The cost for bringing Jack Sparrow back from the dead was Squirrel herself. She just hadn't been brave enough to realise the full extent of what that would mean. She'd been glad, at first, when she still hated him, that she would be the cost, that she would never have to see him again, never have to love him again. But now, now that she knew how she really felt for him, and knowing his intent, it hurt to know the cost. Hurt badly. Hurt more than a goodbye.

"I'm not crying," she told him. "It's just the rain."

He smiled fondly at her, then looked up. He squinted through the falling drops, then looked back down to Squirrel. Then, utter nonchalance, he swept his hat off his head and placed it on Squirrel's. It was a perfect fit. Jack smiled at the look on her face.

"Can I take that as a yes?"

She looked down, and nodded to her feet. "Of course," she said, voice hoarse. "I'll take good care of her for you."

This time, I asked if I could stay, and you said yes. But I can't stay, can I? Not with you. Not if you intend to sail beyond this world and live forever. I can't follow you there. I can't. She closed her eyes and sighed. And you know that. This is the best you can do for me.

She took a few shuddering breaths, and counted her heartbeats until they were slow and steady inside her again. Then she shook her head at him. "You're an idiot."

"Well, that's nice," he huffed, as rain touched his hair and face at last. "I give you a ship and you call me names."

"You've woven this elaborate scheme all around you," she gestured with the sword she still held, "Made a plan for every eventuality, just like you always do…" She puffed a sigh. "Yet somehow I can't help but think that when this story is told, won't be about what a tricky bastard you are."

Jack held up his free hand and pouted. "Hey, I'm not here to save the world. I'm just here to save meself."

"And you'll become a hero in the process."

He grinned at her.

She grinned back, then sighed heavily as the rain continued to fall over them both. "Sometimes, Jack, I just wish I could figure you out."

He pulled a face, gold teeth glinting as the rain cascaded through his braids. "Where'd be the fun in that?"

"At least it would spare me the headaches," she muttered. But even she couldn't help smiling.

1 Maybe/possibly

A/N: There's not going to be a lot of time to be mushy when the epic starts. So, pardon me :D