Chapter 28! Hope everyone enjoys this one! :) Drop me a review, I would love to hear your thoughts, especially all of my lurking followers! :)


The pirate city was a lit with dancing flames and laughter that carried through the darkness, strung along by smoky gusts of wind, as the Voyager came to a slow stop next to the dock. The ripples in the water fractured and bent with orange and yellow streaks of light, illuminating the depths of the bay like a teasing wink, over and over.

He had always liked this city. The chaos made a sort of calm wash over him, something he had never felt during his stay in the Royal Navy. There were no rules here, no orders, no structure, so he could make his own rules as he saw fit.

The gangway had just been lowered, and the Navy tars, disguised as pirates, poured off of the ship no doubt eager for their first taste of freedom. He still stood at the helm with his back leaning against it, contemplating...things.

Things like the current whereabouts of Elizabeth, even though he was not watching to see where she fled off to, nor was he concerned with whether she was coming back or not.

At least, that is what he tried to tell himself. Currently, his inner argument was leaning towards searching for her, but to what end he couldn't pin down. There was no trying to reason with her at the moment, not with Lucifer's poison in her mind. She would most likely flee from him the moment she became aware of his presence anyway.

It was a bit frightening the way he appeared to have no control over how he felt about her, and it was even more frightening that he felt what he did towards her at that moment. An alarming urge to comfort her, to let her in, to stop being angry with her. But, he had already started doing that, against his better judgment, he thought. When she had broken into his cabin, two weeks ago he might have...done things he would have regretted, but instead, he just snickered at her.

Then, when she accused him of...that, he would have normally told her to go back to Will, or find someone else more worthy of her time, or some other snide comment, but instead, he acted as neutrally as he possibly could, just telling her to leave, not for his own good, but for hers. There was no use for her to be around him if just his presence made her feel uncomfortable.

She was getting under his skin, breaking through the walls that he had put up to...he couldn't decide if it made him feel relieved or uneasy.

The way that Lucifer had treated her, the way that he had planted ideas about him in her head, how he would be careless with her were he to take her virginity, how he would dump her at some port or other after he got tired of her, still made his skin crawl, not quite voluntarily. The way that she looked at him like he was dangerous, made him..he wasn't sure what it made him.

"Cap'n?"

He turned to look at the man that he had taken over the captaincy from. As it turned out, Groves wasn't terrible company, warming to the ways aboard a pirate ship with astonishing speed, even embracing them. Perhaps the man had been considering turning pirate even before being forced.

"Aye?"

"How long d'you suppose we are going to be in Tortuga for?"

The question wasn't how long they would be in Tortuga, it was how long he would be in Tortuga.

"Well, Theodore, how well can you keep a secret?"

His face twisted in confusion. "Reasonably well, why?"

"You lot can stay here as long as you like, doesn't matter to me. I won't be around to care. I'm leaving, for Port Royal, as soon as I am able," he explained, pushing off of the helm to face him.

"For Port Royal?" You have business there?"

"Aye...business, if you would like to call it that."

"Am I to be Captain again in your stead?"

"Probably, though I fear that you will be entertaining too many ladies to really worry about the ship at all."

He looked excited for a moment, as though he had wondered about that exact prospect already. The women of Tortuga certainly didn't discriminate on any grounds as far as who they entertained, and Groves was not the worst sort to come around. They might even enjoy corrupting a former member of the Royal Navy if he let it slip somehow.

"Perhaps, Captain Sparrow, perhaps."

"Besides trying to get everything in order, I have another favor to ask of you."

He needed someone to watch over her if he wasn't going to be there to do it.

"Aye?"

"Keep an eye on Elizabeth, will you? Can't have her doing anything...stupid."

"...Certainly, we can do that."

"Good. I don't know when I will be back, or if I will be back, but I'll send some kind of notice just before I leave."

"And what shall I tell the rest of them in your absence?"

That was something he had not considered.

"You're smart, I'm sure you'll think of something."


He headed down the gangway, breathing in the ashy scent of fire, the trinkets in his hair clinking together, reminding him that they would be gone soon, and searched through the crowds of drunks and prostitutes for the shock of blonde hair and the scowl that had adorned her face for the last couple of days.

There had to be words between them, something before he left, so he had to find her. Whether it was shouting, just a 'hey' back and forth, or whatever happened, it needed to happen.

Unfortunately, he had already been spotted by the precise two people that he had been trying to avoid. Excellent.

"Come to pay me a visit, Jack?"

Giselle looked exactly as she had last time he was here, just before Elizabeth demanded to join his crew to look for Will. He stopped, deciding to give them his attention for as long as it took for them to go away.

"Of course he isn't here for you, he's here for me. Isn't that right?"

He dragged his tricorne hat over his face in annoyance at Scarlet's whiny voice.

"No, as surprising as it may be to the two of you, I am not here for either of you."

The torch that was attached to the building behind them caught the slight greasiness of Giselle's hair as she sidled up to him.

"Aww, are you sure? I could certainly-"

"If he is going to share a bed with anyone, it's me," Scarlett said, sticking her nose up in the air.

"What on earth could he possibly want with you? Your hair is too curly, your lips are puckish, and your chest is-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence! My chest is more than adequate, Jack never minded-"

"...I don't care about either of your chests, for the love of Christ…"

But they didn't appear to hear him as they started to tug at each other's hair. Why on earth did he ever give either of these women a moment of his time? The only thing tolerable about them was their mouths when they weren't spouting things that made him want to strangle them.

Shaking his head, he back away from them, managing to escape just as Scarlett shoved Giselle, squawking a few choice words about what her mouth could do better.

"Annoying, aren't they?"

Gibbs was standing just behind him, watching the two women fight.

"You have no idea."

"Looking for Elizabeth?"

"Aye, probably shouldn't, but here I am."

"I haven't seen her, but I did hear her mutter something to Will about a fever."

Her fever that she had had the night she had come storming into his cabin to yell at him, before the nightmare, had been occurring on and off since the nightmare.

"She might be going to the apothecary then, for medicine."

"That sounds possible. Best head in that direction then. I'm in dire need of a drink."

He watched the man amble off in the direction of the Faithful Bryde. The apothecary was at the eastern end of town, a small little hut where everything you bought came with the promise of easing whatever suffering ailed you but did not always deliver, sometimes making you even worse. It was a great metaphor for the pirate's life, certainly.


She had to get away from him, as far away as this city would allow. Just his presence brought turbulence to her mind, an uncertainty of which direction she should follow. Her thoughts, the nightmare, everything he had said to her, told her over and over again that he was dangerous, not to be trusted, that he was going to hurt her the first chance he got, that he would ruin her, take her body by force.

She desperately wished to go back before these poisonous thoughts had entered her brain, wished, again and again, to see things differently, but she just couldn't. He was tainted to her now, something that she couldn't allow in her life.


The wind blew her hair around her face as she stepped into the shop. From where he was standing, he could see her glance to her left, then her right, then behind her, thankfully not spotting him.

She was looking for him, he realized.

Another pang entered his heart. He hated that she was afraid, and he didn't like that he hated it.

If only he hadn't rowed away, if only he hadn't left her…

Or he could have told them all about his fate to begin with, or perhaps she could have had enough faith in him to do the right thing.

...but it wasn't like he had given her any reason to.

She came to rescue him. She bloody killed herself to rescue him, and he still wasn't sure how he felt about that.

Dammit, he was fucking supposed to hate her, but he just couldn't. Her pretty smile when he said something that was apparently funny, the way her eyes could see right through him, the way she gazed at him when they were alone in his cabin, like she was trying to undress him, or trying to coax him to take her on his bed, the way that she loved him even despite all of the awful things he had said to her.

Did she love him? Did he want her to love him?

It would be a damn sight better than what she felt for him at the moment.


She could feel him around but had not been able to spot him.

Closing the door to the apothecary quietly, she inhaled the spicy smell of the shop, then swayed on the spot, reminding her of why she was even there.

A fever, an awful one that would recede then return even worse than before had been plaguing her since the nightmare, and she needed to get rid of it.

"What can I do for you, miss?"

A man, with a scruffy white beard and a thin green bandana wrapped around his head, gazed at her with watery eyes, beckoning her closer.

"Hello, I am looking for something…" she paused, putting her hand on her forehead for a moment to refocus herself, "something that can help with a fever."

"A fever? Yes...yes, you do look a bit peaky. I have just the thing."

He ambled out from behind the counter, making her flinch away from him as he looked through the shelves.

"Ah, here we go. A bit of willow and meadowsweet mixed together should do nicely. Just sprinkle them into a cup of grog, or rum if you like."

"...That's it?"

"That's it."

She dug around in her pocket and paid the man, heading to the Faithful Bryde to do as he asked, and prayed that he wouldn't be there.


Sidestepping a brawl right as he entered the bar, he was reminded of why he tried to avoid the place.

The bartender, Tom, saw him straight away and waved him over.

"Captain Sparrow, how does the sea fare these days?" the man asked once he had taken a seat at the bar.

"Not as well as I would like…"

"Ahh, something troubling you?"

"Something? Quite a few somethings, really."

"I can see that you aren't lookin' to talk about them. No matter. Had a pretty lass looking for you earlier, by the way."

"...Looking for me? Did she by chance have blonde hair-"

"Blonde hair? No, black hair actually and-"

"Jack," a female voice interrupted, causing the pirate captain to turn slowly in his seat, hoping that someone else had just stolen her voice.

"...Annamaria, darling, didn't imagine that I would see you here."

"Right, just like I didn't imagine that I would find you staring at the bottom of a bottle of rum. Funny how things work, isn't it?"

"...Aye, funny. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You owe me."

He sighed, pinching his nose with two fingers.

"You haven't forgotten, then…"

"Ha! No, Jack, I haven't. But I am not here to slap you for it again, lucky for you. Could we talk, somewhere more private?"

With an eyebrow raised at her, he nodded once, allowing her to lead him to a table in the back corner out of earshot of the rest of the bar's occupants.

He sat down, eyeing her with trepidation, wondering what on earth it was that she wanted to talk about.

"So are you going to explain to me how you aren't still dead?"

Oh.

"Dead?"

"Word travels fast amongst pirates, you know that."

"...well, fucking Christ…"

"I even heard that it was a girl that killed you. Imagine that. Was it the way she kissed you, or the way-"

"Really?"

"What? All of the girls here have been trying to break your control for quite some time, in the bedroom, though, not on your ship."

He did have a long history with women in Tortuga, and he wasn't sure if he was proud of it or not. They liked to tell stories, and even though he didn't mind tales being spun about him, that part of his life was something that he would rather be kept quiet.

"She did kiss me actually, just kissed me, then she shackled me to the mast of the Pearl."

Anna's eyes widened.

"Who was it?"

"...Elizabeth."

"Swann? How on earth…"

Then she made a face as though several pieces of a puzzle had just fallen into place.

"She came looking for you awhile back, dressed as a boy."

"That she did."

"...and now you're in love with her," she said at the same time. "Maybe have been for a long time."

He spit out the rum that had just made its descent down his throat. Anna was leaning back in her chair, staring at him triumphantly.

"...what the fuck did you just say?"

"She killed you, betrayed you, and yet, here you are, looking for her."

"I am not in love with her, Anna. For fuck's sake, as you just pointed out, she killed me."

"But she is still alive, Jack."

"So?"

"When you came back to us after your adventure with the Turner boy, and her, you couldn't stop talking about her. I thought you had half a mind to sail back to Port Royal to break their wedding up."

"...I admired her, that's-"

"No, you didn't just admire her. You don't call out anyone's name during...well, it was obvious that you felt something for her, and you still do."

She withstood the fire in his glare, sending it right back, and he hated the way that she had always been able to figure him out with only a few vague clues.

"Let's go upstairs," he muttered, not bothering to leave payment on the table for the rum.


She sat down on the bed, staring at him expectantly. He chose the chair across from her, settling his head in his hands when he sat down.

"I...truly, I don't know how I feel about her right now."

Anna finally seemed to see the scope, the seriousness of the situation and sobered up a bit.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Well, you're going to anyways. How are you alive?"

He laughed, a bitter sound that couldn't decide if it wanted to be sad or annoyed.

"She rescued me. Killed herself to do it."

If Anna was shocked at that information, she didn't show it.

"So she loves you too, then."

His hat nearly fell off when he snapped his head up to look at her.

"Excuse me?"

"Jack, no one willingly goes to the Locker to rescue someone if they don't love them."

He didn't respond to that, didn't really know what to say.

"You're conflicted about whether you love her or hate her, or both."

"I don't hate her," he snapped, surprising himself.

"...but you're avoiding her?"

"No, she is avoiding me."

That topic was not one that he really wanted to talk about, but he was rapidly discovering that he wasn't going to have much of a choice.

"What did you do to her? For God's sake, Jack…"

"I didn't do anything...well, besides saying some things that I shouldn't have, I didn't do anything to her."

"But...someone did?"

"Aye, someone did."

He told her a very brief summary of what happened in the Locker, leaving out the identities of those involved, and then arrived at the nightmare.

"Some...incorrect ideas were planted in her head. Now she is afraid of me."

"...Incorrect ideas?"

"She had a...nightmare. I...Christ...I, or at least something with my body...raped her, in the dream."

Anna's hand flew to her mouth, a sharp intake of breath making the silence of the room even thicker.

"You would never do that Jack, especially not to her...my god, you generally care about the woman's pleasure more than your own-"

"I'm aware of my bedside manners, thanks. But she isn't, and now she has it in her head that I am a danger to her."

"...I'm sorry. I wish I could do something."

"Yeah..well, me too."

They sat in silence for ten minutes, just listening to the other's breath, before Anna spoke again.

"I could distract you. Doesn't have to mean anything, just a bit of fun."

"...distract me?"

"Aye, I seem to remember you having a fondness for-"

"I know what you are talking about," he cut in, glaring at her.

The prospect did sound appealing if only to take his mind off of what actually mattered.

"See, you do love her. Being with another woman makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?"

It did, but the one he wanted to be with hated him. He regarded the female pirate in front of him, drinking in the warm caramel color of her skin, her full lips, and the way she was staring at him, with a hunger in her eyes.

"Aye, but I can ignore that for the time being, I think."

"Good," she said, getting up from the bed just as he rose from the chair, their lips meeting in a kiss, starting slow, then turning into a war, both of them fighting for dominance as she pushed him against the wall, shoving the chair out of the way.


The bar was making her on edge as she wove her way through the chaos. Her skin was tingling, her muscles twitching as though she had just run a long distance, and her hair was matted to her face with sweat.

"Excuse me, could I please get a small cup of grog? And perhaps a room to stay in just for a few hours?"

The bartender looked down his nose at her, before nodding and handing the grog over to her.

"There is an empty room in the top corner, up the stairs."

"Th-thank you," she managed to get out, closing her eyes to fight off the wave of nausea that had just washed over her, sprinkling the herbs into the grog as she climbed the stairs.


He reversed them, slipping his tongue into her mouth, pushing her against the wall, smiling against her when her moan vibrated in her throat. His hands drug her shirt up and over her head, breaking their kiss, her black hair spilling over her bare chest.

Wasting no time, he bent his head and latched onto her neck, nibbling at her, grazing his teeth just where he knew she liked it.

"...Jacktan bueno..."

Her hands dove down to his breeches, fumbling with the ties only for a second before he was released, hard and straining against her questing fingers.

"Oh love...eager are we?" he groaned as she stroked him.

"Every woman is eager to touch you, you should know that by now."

He pressed his body against hers, lifting her to pin her between him and the wall, roughly taking a nipple into his mouth, thrusting his hips against her still clothed core.

"Let me down," she breathed as he made quick work of her breeches. When he did as she asked, she spun him around and pushed him against the wall again, relieving him of the rest of his clothes.

"As much as you may irritate me, you're still a beautiful man. Dammit, Jack."

He leaned his head back against the wall, grinning at her, his grin turning into something entirely different when she sank to her knees and took him fully in her mouth.


Just making it up the stairs, she reached out a hand to steady herself, the hallway spinning around her.

She heard voices, coming from somewhere, making some kind of noise, but she couldn't understand...couldn't hear them properly.

Then…

'Oh, darling…'

Her blood froze, the cup of grog nearly spilling over when her hand started to shake.

It was him, Jack.


He stared down at her as her mouth slid up and down his length, his fingers threaded into her hair. Not many women were willing to perform this activity, and it was even rarer to find one that enjoyed it.

This woman certainly did, made evident by how her tongue danced around every ridge, over the hood at the tip, how she sucked at him, burying him in her mouth with every stroke.

He could feel the growing pleasure building, tightening, and he didn't want this to end that quickly.

"Anna...Anna...fuck," he pleaded, tugging on her head. She finally stopped, smiling at him after wiping her mouth. He gave her a pleased grin of his own, pulling her up to give her a kiss.

"You're almost too good at that, you know."

"Mmm, I do know," she said, smiling as she pulled him in the direction of the bed, spinning him so that he was sitting.

She straddled him, her legs locking around his as he took her mouth again, deepening the kiss when she impaled herself on him, sinking down slowly.


The wall was hard against her back as she flattened herself against it.

She should leave, she should go, far away, far away from the two of them, but she couldn't will her legs to move.

Emotions that she wanted no part of warred within her. Jealousy, arousal, excitement, they made her feel disgusted with herself. Jack was disgusting, and there should be no part of her that wanted to barge in the room to...she didn't even know what.

His voice, as he murmured sweet things to Annamaria, burned her ears, and she felt something tugging at her, something buried deep, but she ignored it.

Suddenly she registered that tears were falling down her cheeks, but they had no reason to be there.

Why on earth should she care if Jack bedded other women? It kept him away from her.


She stilled on top of him after her orgasm subsided, staring at the mess that he had made on her stomach.

"...thank you, darling."

"You're welcome, Jack," she said, chuckling.

They both dressed after Jack wiped his seed off with a warm cloth, and Anna left the room before he did. He vaguely heard her bump into something before stalking off down the hallway.

Readjusting his hat, he made to leave too, just making it to the doorway when he froze, his heart rate accelerating at an alarming rate. Reality slammed back into him, and he suddenly fiercely hated everything he had just done. He had to support himself on against the door frame due to the wave of dizziness that washed over him.

"Lizzie…"