Hey.

I saw an angry mob forming on the horizon and I got scared, so this update is brought to you from a top secret location somewhere top secret in deepest, darkest space. You guys are very scary when you want to be! :S I updated as soon as I could, but I'm a bit behind on everything in the entire world and I couldn't get on to the internet because when I had a free second some family member was on and they don't know about any of this and if they did they'd be like, "You fail! What is this rubbish? Why are you wasting you time with this crap?!?! You are banned from everything!" So now has really and truly been my only chance. I do hope you forgive me and disband from scary angry mob...

...then again.... maybe not!

I didn't join in the celebrations that night. We may have won, but we had paid a heavy price. Jones may be dead, but Will had taken his place. Men had died, along with my brother and I didn't see a reason to celebrate. I hadn't had time to grieve. Celebration didn't seem right. I suppose the crew just wanted a valid reason to get drunk. Not that they ever really needed a reason.

I was more than a little surprised to see that Jack did not join in with the celebrations either. He stood at the rail, looking out deep into the water as if searching for something. I don't know what he expected to find, but he was looking pretty hard. He stayed there long after the sun set. His thoughts clearly troubled him, but I didn't ask. I wasn't in the mood for an earful.

I slept little that night. Maybe because it was my last night aboard the Pearl. My last night with Jack. And he wasn't even talking to me. It was probably best that way, it would be easier for me to leave if there was no Jack to hold me back. I couldn't pretend I hadn't expected that reaction from him. I knew I was doing what was right for me. But that didn't stop it feeling horribly wrong.

As the crew slept where they had fallen the night before I tried to memorise every detail and every sound. Memories that had etched themselves into the wood of the Pearl seemed to echo and bounce around the walls as if telling me not to leave. I ran my hand along the rail, my fingertips noticing the feel of it and trying to remember each and every contour in every grain of wood. My feet did their best to count the number of steps between my bunk and the door of Jack's cabin. The Pearl held so many memories both good and bad, but it had come to represent so much to me.

So it was both a relief and a curse to see the sun come up. It was a sight I was both dreading and longing to see. With the first few cold rays came the sight of Port Royale. It was a sight that filled me with nothing but pure dread. Nothing good was left in Port Royale. My friends were gone and my family wiped out. It was the only place I could escape to. Maybe "escape" was the wrong word. I was leaving the one place I felt free and voluntarily putting myself in the place I had been imprisoned for my whole life.

"Are ye sure ye can't stay?" Gibbs made me jump. "We'd all want ye too."

"All of you?"

"Aye," it was not Gibbs, but Barbossa who'd spoken. I looked at him in surprise. "You may be annoying, but it'd be awful quiet without you."

"Hector Barbossa, you old softy!" I grinned. He rolled his eyes, but the corners of his mouth twitched a little.

"I dare say Jack would want ye here too," said Gibbs after a pause.

"I doubt it," I sighed quietly. "He's not even talking to me."

"Have ye tried talking to him today?" he asked.

I shook my head, "No…"

"Well ye should, before ye leave," he urged. There was a silence. I looked away from them. I wanted to shout at them to stop staring at me, but that may have been a bit rude seeing as they had just been so nice to me.

"Come on, Master Gibbs," said Barbossa eventually. "We've a lot of hungover pirates to wake up and I aint doin' it on me own. That's how Larry lost his eye."

"No, I heard it was only half an eye he lost," Gibbs replied. They walked off arguing about exactly what fraction of an eye Larry had lost. My eyes were drawn like two magnets to the door of Jack's cabin. It was a barrier between us; closed, but never locked. Open to whichever one of us stopped being stubborn for long enough to open it. My main complaint was that it was usually me. I don't know how he managed to guilt me into opening it when I couldn't even see him, but I found myself knocking on the wood. My pride was well and truly swallowed to make way for one last attempt to patch things up with Jack before I left.

"Come in!" Jack bellowed from inside. I took a deep breath. He probably already knew it was me, I guessed I was most likely to be the only one on the ship polite enough to knock before entering. I pulled open the door with a horrible sinking feeling. But what did I have to lose?

Jack was standing with his back to me, arms folded, looking out to sea through the windows of the Pearl. He didn't say anything. He knew it was me, I was sure of it now. The cold silence hanging over us spoke volumes.

"I'm leaving now," I said quietly, not quite sure how to break it, or how he would react. Would he even care?

"Fine," he didn't even turn. Clearly he didn't care. I stood there awkwardly for longer than I should have wondering if he planned on saying anything else. Should I just leave? Was this it? After all that we had been through, the years I'd known him this was how it was all going to end?

"I thought I would come and say goodbye," I tried again.

Silence.

"Goodbye," he said with absolutely no emotion. So that was it then. I cursed myself for even bothering to try to talk to him. I turned away and sighed. My sigh seemed to make something deep inside him snap and he whipped around to face me, his face flushing with anger. "Off you go then!" he shouted. "Off you go back to your boring, pathetic life where other people decide things for you! Have your things paid for by money extracted from selling humans as slaves! You can sit and gossip with the other upper-class lowlifes about how awful we pirates are! No doubt you'll be all the more interesting because you have actually spent time with some! Off you go back to the men who had your whole life planned out from the second you were born! Go away and pretend none of this ever happened if you think they'll still accept you, but I'm sure you're precious George will protect you, the filthy lummox! He's not good for you, Belle. Not really! He may seem perfect on paper, but he doesn't deserve you! Go on then! Get out!!!"

At the end of his harsh words we stared at each other for a long time. His words hurt me. They cut me deeper than a lot of things ever could. I never knew that he though so lowly of me. He looked away, breathing deeply as if his little speech had taken a lot out of him. His built-up anger had just been released in a rather loud explosion, so I presumed that it had taken some effort. He'd most likely been holding it in since the day we met. He looked down at his table and started re-arranging the maps. I knew he was waiting for me to leave, but I couldn't move. My feet seemed cemented to the floor.

"Get out," he said again. My feet sprang into action. I walked towards the door. As my hand touched the cool doorknob I turned.

"Why are you…" I was ashamed to hear my voice crack. "Why are you being so difficult?"

His fist slammed down against the table making me jump. He rounded on me, his face flushed.

"BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!!!!!!" he bellowed.

#GASP!!# Shocked much? But how will she react? Hmm...?

What do you think? Can I come out of hiding now? What if I tell you that I am really bored of this story and it will be discontinued now?

I am JOKING!!!

Calm your spams! Jeeze...