A/N: This took a little longer than expected, because the first draft seemed waaay too rushed for my liking. So I had to go back and expand and revise, which took a while because of another bout of 'I-have-no-spare-time-itis'. Ugh... But here is it, finally. The next chapter will be the last, and it's been a fun, albeit long, road. So enjoy!
Her head hurt... badly...
Groaning and opening her eyes slowly, Tazz winced at the bright sunlight streaming in her windows. She shifted slightly, her arm falling limply off the side of her bed, her fingers grazing the carpet. Opening her eyes further, she noticed a big black lump lying contentedly in a discarded pair of jeans. "Spooky...?" she mumbled.
And in the span of about half a second, it all came back to her.
Tazz shot like a rocket off her bed, startling the black cat from his sleeping place and transforming him into a giant puffball. With her legs slightly wobbly, she quickly careened into her bookshelf and thudded to the floor. With Spooky watching her warily from a corner, Tazz panted for air and looked around wildly. This was her room. Her sloping ceiling, her bed, her large French windows, her dirty clothes all over the floor... She was home...
Shakily getting to her feet, Tazz pulled on some clothes and walked over to her cat. Plucking him off the floor, she held him to her chest and breathed into his fur. He was real. He was really real. She stood there for a long minute just holding the cat and breathing. Carefully, as if the world would shatter around her, Tazz walked to the stairs and went down to the first floor.
The kitchen was just as she remembered. She hadn't seen it for over three weeks, but she still remembered where everything was supposed to be. Hell, even the same cereal boxes were on the top of the fridge next to the cat food.
Still in a daze, Tazz set down the cat and poured some Cat Chow into a small dish beside the fridge. While Spooky ate, Tazz wandered into the dining room. The dining room table was just as she'd left it, including the dirty plate she had left there the morning before her encounter in the park. Had Jen not cleaned it up since she'd been gone? No, Jen couldn't stand for a dish to be sitting out for more than a day... And Spooky would have eaten the last morsels on the plate by now... How long had she been gone?
Had she been gone at all?
Everything was as she had left it the day before she awoke in Tortuga. Had that entire thing been one absolutely insane dream? Yes... that was the only explanation. It was a dream. Just a dream... Although in the back of her mind she knew it was useless, Tazz found herself shakily calling out, "Jack?"
"You say something, Tazz?"
The female voice caught her off guard. "J – Jen?"
"Yup," the voice replied. "When'd you get home last night? Late, I presume?"
"Um, yeah..." Tazz mumbled, staring blankly at the plate on the table. She heard motion from the living room to her right. Jen came around the corner and leaned against the jamb. She was taller than Tazz and had a model's physique. She had long straight brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail; her eyes were light blue. Her red sweater clung to her curves and only an inch of stomach showed between it and her blue jeans.
Jen arched a brow. "Jeez, Tazz, you look like Hell. What's wrong?"
Tazz opened her mouth to say that she had had a bad dream, but Jen continued.
"And what's that on your arm?!"
Cue: cold sweat.
Looking down, Tazz immediately saw the 'P' brand seared into her right forearm. Her blood ran cold. "Holy shit..." Looking over her hands, she realized her palms were still hard and calloused from working with ropes day in and day out for weeks... Scrambling to pull up her shirt, Tazz saw her ribs were covered in ugly residual bruising from her fall out of the crow's nest.
Jen was staring at her in concern. "My god, what happened to you, Tazz?" she gasped. "What the hell did that?"
Tazz's mouth was dry. "I fell..." she whispered.
"A fall doesn't do that..."
"I fell out of the crow's nest," Tazz repeated.
Jen arched a thin brow. "You fell out of a nest? What are you talking about?"
Tazz dropped her shirt back in place. "It was real..." Her hands began to tremble. "It was all real... What she said was true, then. I wasn't born here, I was born there!" All at once, her gaze sharpened. "I have to go."
"What? Go where? Tazz, nothing you are saying is making any sense!" Jen strode towards her. "You have bruises that look like a grizzly bear attacked you, and now you're babbling about where you were born. Just calm down and I'll take you to the hospital, okay?"
Tazz looked up at Jen and slowly shook her head. "They can't help," she murmured. "I need to go, Jen. I need to find Calista, and I need to do it now." With that, Tazz turned and headed for the side door, jogging down the few stairs to the entry. "Take care of Spooky, and thanks for everything." Then she pushed the screen door open and was gone.
Jen blinked. "Wha –? Tazz!" A black blur shot down the stairs and out the door before it fully shut. "He's following you!" Jen yelled before the door clicked shut. In the silence that followed, she merely sighed and put a hand to the back of her head. "Bye, Tazz."
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"What did you do with her, you old witch?!"
Jack's outburst was futile, seeing as the witch was nowhere to be seen. He'd had the crew search the ship up and down and there was no sign of Tazz anywhere. Her other clothes were still in her cabin, but other than that, it was as if she had never been there. And that put Jack in a right fine mood...
Will started a little as Jack threw another container of who-knows-what across the deck. Jack had resorted to looking for Tazz underneath everything that wasn't battened down. "Jack!" he yelled for the umpteenth time. "She's gone!"
And for the umpteenth time, Jack paid no heed and continued his rampage.
Pintel and Ragetti stood near Will and watched their captain go stir-crazy. "What ye s'pose we do now?" Ragetti muttered to Will.
"I don't know," Will replied. "This is something out of our league, even with what we've been through. But Jack... He took a keen interest in Devil; took her under his wing. He's not going to take this well..."
They all ducked as something else heavy went soaring over their heads.
"Ye think?" Pintel sniped.
Jack continued making a terrible mess of the deck in his mad frenzy... until Ana Maria stepped in. Literally. The black woman strode up to Jack and stomped on his hand, keeping him from flipping over something else. Jack stopped his rampage and stared at Ana Maria as if she were mad. Ana Maria just glared right back.
"Stop it, Captain," she said sternly.
Jack frowned. "Pardon me?"
"I said stop it," she repeated. "You're makin' a huge fuss over nothing."
"Nothing?" Jack repeated, standing up. "A witch pops outta nowhere and disappears with Devil, and that nothing?"
"She took her home, Jack," Ana Maria replied. "The witch took Devil home. Isn't that what we were doin'? So why tear the Pearl apart when the job's been done for us?"
"But she –"
"Jack! She's home... Devil is home." She paused and sighed. "So let's go home as well."
There was a long stretch of silence, the entire crew waiting to see what would happen. Finally, Jack looked away from Ana Maria's prying gaze and muttered, "Turn her about..."
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Tazz all but ran down the streets of Larken. The houses on either side of her flew by in a blur. She ignored them all. She had to find Calista. Reaching the end of the block, Tazz kept on going into the street. Horns blared, but they did nothing. Halfway down the next block, Tazz suddenly came to an abrupt halt. She stopped in her tracks and focused on what was around her. The houses, the paved roads, the trees on the lawns... This was home. She found herself just staring at everything around her. This place was what she knew; what she had fought so hard to get back to.
And now, looking at it, she realized it meant nothing to her. This town had kept her safe for ten years, and it had served its purpose for her. Smiling slightly, Tazz knew what had to be done.
Something rubbed against her leg. Looking down, Tazz was surprised to see Spooky curling in figure-eights around her legs. "Did you follow me, Spooky?" she murmured, smiling a bit. Stooping down, she picked the cat up and continued on towards the park...
Fifteen minutes later, the seaside park came into view. It was empty, which was strange for the nice afternoon. Slowly making her way in, Tazz looked everything over. The playground was the same one she'd played at as a child, the baseball field where she'd played baseball during the summers, the large patch of grass where she'd brawl with those who had wronged her...
She walked towards the baseball field bleachers, setting Spooky down on one of then and looking around. Why did she think Calista would just be waiting here for her? That witch was probably sitting on a beach drinking Kaluha right now... "Come on, show yourself," Tazz growled to nothing, glancing over everything. "Show yourself!"
Nothing moved.
Tazz sighed in vexation. "Okay, you win!" she yelled. "I want to go back! I was wrong! You were right! Just come here!" Still nothing. "Geez, do I need to say it again? You win! Just send me back!"
"My, my, you're a hard one to please..."
