The Pearl and her crew had yet to leave the eye of the hurricane, which was as calm as the hurricane itself was like a tumultuous volcano. The crew had already suffered two losses just to get to where they were now, and no one wanted another good soul to be lost to Davy Jones. Up on the top deck, Jack directed a thorough preparation for their final crossing through the storm.

"Mr. Cotton, secure all the bloody lifelines correctly or it's yer guts I'll be feedin' to the fishes!" Jack shouted at the mute sailor from his place at the helm of the ship. He held the great wooden wheel with one hand, and the other held out his open magical compass. Jack clenched his teeth and fixed his dark eyes on the moving arrow. "C'mon darling, show ol' Jack the way outta this godforsaken hell hole," he swore under his breath.

He looked up for a moment, and the first thing he spotted was Emelia Kraven emerging from the hatch. His dark-rimmed eyes followed her figure as she heavily strode towards his Captain's Quarters and disappeared underneath the helm behind its double doors.

Jack snapped his compass shut and let it fall to his side before turning towards Joshamee Gibbs. "Mr. Gibbs, man the wheel and keep a sharp eye on the men. I have certain business to attend to," Jack ordered the portly man sternly. Without another word, he quickly made for the stairs.

When he quietly entered his quarters, he found Em hunched over his writing desk with her back facing him and her hands placed flat on top of the map that they had chartered together. Jack opened his mouth to say something, but it was as if she had been anticipating his arrival as she placed a hand up to silence him.

"Leave me be, Jack," she warned him darkly, like a bad omen. She still had not turned around to face him.

Jack warily took a couple of steps towards her and held his hands out. "I'm sorry love, but you don't have the authority to order me out o' me own cabin," he told her.

Em pushed herself off of his writing desk and spun around with a spark of anger in her eyes. "Why can't you just leave me be?" she yelled at him. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes and blinked them furiously back. In her building blind rage, Em took out her pistol and placed the tip of the firearm at the base of Jack's neck. She stepped up closer towards him until there was less than a foot left of space in between them. "Just leave me alone Jack Sparrow," she whispered brokenly. In such closer range, Em could see that the black kohl Jack usually wore around his eyes had all but been washed away from the time he had spent in the water. Jack was still dripping wet to some degree, and he looked chilled to the bone with the absence of his coat. Feeling a touch of warmth seep into her cold heart, Em reached behind her towards the writing desk and when she turned back to Jack, in her free hand she held his tricorn hat.

Jack smiled toothily as he greedily snatched his beloved hat and placed it on his head. "Thank-y darling," he told her gratefully. He felt her remove her pistol from his neck and breathed a bit easier. Then, his smile was gone as he remembered the main reason why he had literally risked his neck to bother her, especially at this painful time in her mourning. Jack placed both of his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her sad eyes, inwardly bracing himself for what was to come after he was done.

Em slowly tilted her head up to meet Jack's gaze, which now held an expression like that of a messenger boy who has terrible news to deliver. Out of habit, she placed one hand on his broad chest. The other reached up and held his left wrist tightly. She could feel the "P" brand under her fingers. "What do you want to tell me?" she whispered.

Jack took a deep breath, and then plunged head first. "Mr. Drummond"-he paused here out of respect-"wanted me to tell you something." Jack fumbled a bit here since he wasn't used to doing things like these. Especially things like these. "Well Emelia . . ." He nervously licked his lips. "Uh, he wanted me to tell you that, that he was gonna be watching o'er you with yer brother."

Jack winced, waiting for the water works to begin, but after a moment or two had passed and he had not even heard a whimper from Em, he opened his eyes again and looked at her with concern. "Love?" He looked at her closely and saw that she was in a daze. Jack shook her a bit. "Emelia, snap outta it, girl!" he said sternly. "Emel-Whoa there!" he yelped as he barely caught Em from sinking to the floor at his feet. Then in his arms, Em laid her head on his chest and began to sob as if her heart was breaking; and indeed, it was.

"I should have never let him go!" she sobbed into Jack's chest. "I should have ordered that bloody traitor McIlrath to risk and lose his life instead!"

Jack pulled Em back to her feet, but kept his arms tight around her. He felt her hands slide in between their bodies to hide her face, that mask of sorrow. With one tight hold with one arm around her waist to keep her from slipping down again, his other hand slowly and a bit awkwardly rubbed a small of her back. "Love, listen to me," Jack said. "Shhh, cease yer tears Emelia." He gave her a stern look as soon as her tears were merely down to trickles. "An' I wouldn't say things about wantin' McIlrath to have saved me instead. He might even have tried to finish me off," he said the last part half jokingly.

Em looked up at him with a sad, watery smile. Yet behind that smile, Jack could still sense the world of suffering that she had found herself in. "I'm terribly sorry, Jack," she apologized softly and sniffed.

Jack gave her a crooked smile. "Apology accepted, darling." Jack let go of Em, but took hold of one of her hands. He motioned with his other hand towards the double doors, and with a gruff tone said, "Let's get the Pearl outta this storm, shall we?"

Hours later, the top deck of the Pearl was as silent as the grave. Even Cotton's parrot, which was perched on its master's shoulder, seemed to understand the need of this silence. All hands were on deck to witness the condemnation of Timmothy McIlrath in front of his peers. The culprit stood in front of the helm with dull green eyes, waiting for his captain to tell him his death sentence. Yet neither his death, nor a thousand others, could ever compensate for the death of Vincent Drummond.

Behind the two captains, who both somberly stood at the wheel, the storm was slowly growing smaller and smaller as the Pearl carried herself and her crew away from it.

The silence thickened as Em raised her head up high and walked up to the balcony of the helm. She looked down at Tim McIlrath and fixed upon him a stony look.

"The charges against you, Timmothy McIlrath," she began coldly, "are as followed: for you deliberate and failed attempt to cast out co-Captain Jack Sparrow; for your treachery of deliberate neglect of my order to secure all lifelines; and for the unfortunate death of Vincent Drummond, whose honorable attempt to save said pirate had cost him his own life because of your treacherous plot, by the authority having been invested in me by your peers, I order you to kiss the gunner's daughter for the maximum of fifty lashes by the cat o' nine tails to your bare back."

At her signal, two burly men broke apart from the congregation. Under the heavy blanket of silence, the two men roughly grabbed Tim McIlrath by the arms, and without meeting any resistance, they dragged him over to one of the tied cannons on the port side of the deck.

Em slowly walked to the left side until she stood at the top of the stairs. She watched with cold, unemotional eyes as Tim McIlrath was bent over the cannon and held down by the arms. Then, the men tore his cotton shirt so that his bare back was exposed for all to see. Behind her, Jack Sparrow gave him first mate a nod, and Joshamee Gibbs walked heavily past Em and down the stairs. In his right hand, he tightly held the cat o' nine tails, a long whip with nine, thick leather lashes. With a grim look on his bearded face, Gibbs raised the cat o' nine tails high in the air and brought it down harshly across Tim's back. Bright red blood oozed and dripped through the long, fresh cut as Gibbs lifted the whip back up for another stinging blow. Many watched on with as equally grim looks as Gibbs while the more squeamish men closed their eyes or turned their heads away.

Em herself remained impassive, her delicate features showing no emotion as if they had been chiseled from cold marble stone. She numbly watched Tim receive blow after blow after blow.

The first ten or so, he kept good from so much as whimpering from the torturous pain being inflicted upon him, but near the last couple lashes, he was yelling for mercy and release from the punishment with tears cascading down either side of his red face even as the large amount of blood on his mangled back gushed and washed the ground around him with its foul stench. In the end, before the final blow was made, he passed out from the pain and blood loss.

Nobody but the two pirates holding Tim and Gibbs moved so much as an inch as the aforementioned three moved away from the unconscious body, letting it drop in a heap on the cold wooden floor.

Suddenly the silence was shattered by loud, hallow thumps coming from up in the helm. Many of the men quickly turned to the source of the noise, who still stood next to the steering wheel. Jack lifted his right boot up high again and brought it down on the wooden floor with another loud thump.

As the eerie sound echoed in the air, the two doors that led to Jack's cabin swung open. Out walked Briggen and Ozz, the latter looking particularly green around the gills. In between them, they carried a large wooden chest that was as big as half the size of a coffin. Indeed, it would become Tim McIlrath's coffin.

Briggen and Ozz carefully placed the chest in front of Gibbs before hiding amongst the other crew members. Gibbs turned his head to the two burly pirates and nodded towards Tim, who was now just starting to come around. Gibbs also silently gestured to them to "make it snappy". The two men quickly walked over to Tim and grabbed him by both the arms and legs.

Tim cracked his eyes open half-way at the contact, but they soon widened in fright as he spotted the open chest that he was being carried to. But before he could open his mouth to even yell, he was thrown into the chest, and the lid was closed with a snap, muffling his frantic screams. He heard the click of the lock and began to claw blindly at the dark confines of the chest, screaming for mercy and release. He heard Em's muffled voice somewhere outside his prison.

Still standing at the top of the stairs, Em watched with grim satisfaction as the two men pushed and pulled the chest over to the edge of the ship. As they started to lift the heavy burden up onto the railing, Em swiftly walked down the steps, all eyes transfixed upon her. She pushed the two men away, lifted her left boot high in the air, and pushed the chest overboard. As soon as the chest disappeared from her sight, Em turned around and looked up at the helm where she locked eyes with Jack.

"Let's get out of here," she said coldly.


Tim felt himself falling . . . falling, until he knew he had hit the ocean water when a massive jolt caused his head to hit the side of the chest. He slipped in and out of consciousness even as the chest sunk deeper and deeper into the sea. In his delusional state of mind, Tim imagined that the ocean currents roaring around him were actually the noises of the tormented spirits in Hell on their final Judgment. Tim thought that if there was a way to escape this Hell, he'd take it unquestioningly.

Then, when he was near to blacking out again, the chest jolted again, but this time to what seemed like a stop. Tim felt as if he were being lifted and so did his spirits. He had been miraculously saved! He closed his eyes, but his ears were still tuned into the sounds all around him. He heard many voices surrounding his prison. Coming from his right, he heard dull thuds, and a high-pitched voice that accompanied them. The next moment, he heard the sound of a gunshot before the lid was thrown open.

Before he could get his bearings, two pairs of clammy, wet hands with vice-like grips grabbed his arms roughly and practically threw him out of his cramped coffin. Those same pairs of hands hauled him to his feet and ice cold water was dumped over his bruised, bloodied, and aching body. The corners of Tim's nose twitched as the horrid smell of rotten fish reached his senses so that he was forced to open his eyes. What he saw in front of him stuck fear into his chilled heart.

He stared up at Davy Jones himself, with his cursed, crustaceous crew flanking the master of the sea from behind. Tim began to tremble violently as Davy Jones, whose entire head resembled that of an octopus, slowly knelt down and stuck his bubbly head close to Tim's pale face.

Davy Jones opened his mouth and began to speak with clear disdain mixed with raw power in his tone, "Do you fear death, boy? Do you fear that dark abyss which we have pulled you from? All your deeds laid bare?" The terrifying captain stood back up. Out from his front coat pocket, he took out a small wooden smoke pipe and placed it in his left hand, which like his head was also no longer human; it was a very large crab claw. With his right hand that still had attained its human form, he lit his pipe and sucked deeply the burning tobacco. The claw took out the pipe from his mouth and he deliberately blew the smoke into Tim's face. Davy Jones leaned down and whispered softly, "All your sins punished? I can offer you an escape." For a second time, he stood up straight again and gestured with his human hand towards his silent crew. His voice boomed over them all. "Join my crew, and postpone your judgment. One hundred years before the mast! Will ye serve?"

By this time, Tim had wriggled free of the two pairs of hands that had held him up, and was barely holding himself upright. Yet as he stared bravely into Davy Jones' cruel bottomless eyes, he had already made his decision. "I will," he said strongly, despite his frail appearance. "But on one condition," he added quickly.

A small murmur erupted within the cursed pirates, which was only silenced effectively by the deep black look that their captain threw at them. Davy Jones turned back to his new sailor-to-be with a smirk across his sickly yellowish skin. "And what is that condition, boy?" he thundered.

Tim's posture seemed to straighten up even more. He clenched his fists. "That I speak to someone for the last time," he said, with a hint of pain and anger behind his words.

Davy Jones' smirk grew tighter and slyer. "Ahh, a woman, eh?" he leered, earning a round of crusty laughter from his crew.

Tim nodded. "Aye, a woman by the name of Emelia Kraven." This earned renewed silence, for the name of the infamous female pirate was well known among them. "The woman of Jack Sparrow." Just as he had planned, his words had taken a definite effect on the cursed captain because even Tim McIlrath had heard all the tales that surrounded this master of the sea, that Davy Jones had once loved a lass who was just like the sea.

Davy Jones hissed because of not only was the condition about a woman, but he also hissed because of the loathing that the name Jack Sparrow had generated. "So ye be wanting to say goodbye to this wench?" he sneered down at Tim.

Tim smirked coldly. "No, I just want to slit her throat so that no other man ever has her."