Hey guys! I'm sorry it took me so long, I've been studying really really hard for exams and I had a slam poem due and ohmygosh, just too much stuff. Thank you so much for all the reviews last chapter, they meant so much, and I'm glad you guys liked how she admitted it- I was a little iffy on the way, but in the end I'm happy with it. So, review, let me know what you think, and I'll try to update again on Sunday. (gotta birthday party and a tribute concert to attend). All my Love.

-Han

The Black Pearl would be sucked under if they didn't get out, the deck seeming to moan under the pressure of the spinning water around it, pulling harshly on the black wood. Crewmembers felt their bodies' angle downwards, as if being pulled by invisible threads toward the black center of the maelstrom. Barbossa was screaming orders, looking unwillingly back at the fast disappearing Dutchman being taken away by the currents. His face hardened, erasing traces of misplaced guilt at the thought of the four pirates lost and faced the sailors again.

"She's takin' us down! Make quick, or it's the locker for us all!" He barked, his hands tight on the wheel like his firm grip alone could save them. The Pearl started to veer out, fighting the swirling waters with a strength the crew could only pray would hold out.

The Captain's eyes flicked back to the Dutchman, watching it be swept further towards the center of the maelstrom, flitting along the edges of the crushing blackness. Anna's eyes followed the leaving Pearl with dark eyes, eyes praying for salvation from the oblivion she was falling into. Whether it was the one the Dutchman was flying to or the one in her own chest, she didn't know.

She was still clinging to Will's chest, unwilling to move as tears streamed from her eyes and she felt herself take Elizabeth's hand as they watched him die. Elizabeth was in hysterics, her grip bruising around the pirate woman's fingers, squeezing as if to reassure herself that it wasn't a horrible dream. Anna couldn't breathe, she was crying too hard. She could feel his life slipping away as his chest tried valiantly to rise and fall.

Words were falling from her lips in barely intelligible tumbles, it might have been a repeated slur of 'No's' rising from panic. She knew that was what Elizabeth was saying, holding his face in her hands and begging for her husband to look at her. Anna flicked her eyes up, watching in horror as the crew of the Dutchman walked forward with purpose, Will's dying breath lingering around them like a whispered goodbye.

"Part of the crew, part of the ship," Bootstrap said almost sadly, gazing at his son like he was sorry. Anna felt Jack lay a hand on her shoulder gently, trying to pull her back from her predatory position in front of her brother. She looked at him, eyes swimming and red at the edges, fear and panic mingling together until rational thought was dispelled.

"Don't leave me! I won't leave you!" Elizabeth screamed, writhing against Jack's strong hand as he began to pull her back, her eyes riveted on her husband. Anna felt herself standing, gaze held still on his bleeding chest, her own feeling empty and impossibly heavy at the same time. She'd failed her little brother. Failed to protect him.

"I'm so sorry, Will," She whispered, stumbling backwards as the weight settled on her heart. He was dead, because he tried to help her. Dead because she couldn't do anything right. Dead and gone and beyond reach. Her hands braced herself on the railing as she tried to control her spinning emotions, distantly she realized that she'd told Jack she loved him, in some indirect way. She smiled grimly, another thing she'd ruined. Jack wouldn't be able to look at her now.

She steeled herself, moving with purpose as the crew converged on Will's body, Bill's knife held out in front of him. She slashed at a rope, gripping it tightly as Jack moved with her taking hold of another until they were holding up both ends of a canvas. Makeshift parachute in hands, they moved to the railing, preparing to jump and pray the wind would catch them. Anna felt numb, frozen words inside her chest, sobs caught in her throat. There was still a war to be had.

Will would have wanted her to go on. She felt Jack the monkey climb onto her shoulder and wrap himself tightly around her as she did herself around the pirate. Elizabeth was clinging to the front of him, arms around his neck like he could distract her from pain. Jack's dark eyes were bleak, stoic and forever calm looking. She wondered if beneath the exterior, he grieved. She wondered what he felt.

Before they let the breath of the Goddess carry them to safety, she heard Bootstrap whisper to his son, "The Dutchman must always have a Captain."

But Will was dead, didn't they see that? Couldn't they tell?

The wind jerked them up and away from the HellGate, the Flying Dutchman being sucked under by its blackness. Her body crashed against Jack's as they were pushed towards the Pearl, her body trying desperately to hold on. The sighted the Pearl and Jack angled them towards it with a deft twitch of his hand. They hit the water softly, the water caressing Anna's skin as she floated gently to the surface.

Jack was supporting Elizabeth, who looked to have shut down, her eyes unseeing on the rest of the world. They swam for the ship, water making her limbs feel heavy and she felt her burns pulling against her skin, old scars making themselves known. She climbed up the side of the Pearl last, half-drowned monkey clinging to her shoulders like she was the Messiah.

Her head rose and she felt herself slipping into her role, Pirate King, strong. She couldn't afford to be anything less when the armada was against them. She couldn't show the weakness she felt in her body at just the thought of her little brother. Or of Jack.

She walked almost lazily to the helm, standing beside Barbossa calmly, her eyes on the ships ahead. The older Captain slid his eyes to her almost slyly, as if taking everything about her into account. She was still bleeding from a few places, but she didn't show pain. The real pain was in her eyes, a shattered reflection of her heart.

"Assumin' what happen' down there is what I think, it'd be best to put it behind you," he offered, wondering if that even counted as advice. Her gaze flicked to his, a nearly daring look resting just above the grief and regret. "S'why pirates don' tie themselves down."

"Is it impossible for pirates to feel, then?" she asked, her back straight.

"Now no one said that, lass," Barbossa said wisely. "But hard is a man's life that puts his family on the line and survives, when they are lost to black oblivion and crushing depths."

"I suppose it's very good that I'm not a man, isn't it?" she bit back, her eyes narrowing. He nodded his head thoughtfully, his eyes flicking between her and Jack as the younger man gazed at the armada ahead of them, trying to figure out his course of action.

"Aye, man ye aren't, but pirate ye are," he intoned, a tip of his head in her direction. "An' seldom be there a pirate that don' know that feelin's rough as hurricanes swell's produces bad form."

Anna sighed and ran a hand through her hair, her eyes flicking between the armada and the sky as if it could give her answers. Barbossa thought they looked murky, undecided, scared. "Sometimes feelin's the only way to know you're still alive," she said slowly, as if trying out the words on her tongue. "And sometimes we're just falling away and breaking and feeling is all that holds us down," she said, her voice gaining strength. "And there's no way to stand grounded on the sea and maybe you don't need it but I know sometimes I need a sign, a reason. Nothing but the sea and the stars are eternal, but feeling could make our brief time here worth it."

Barbossa looked like he would respond but Gibbs' seemed to finally find his voice, staring at Jack as the Captain cracked his neck and began walking towards the helm. "Jack, the armada's still out there, the Endeavour's coming up hard to starboard, and I think it's time we embraced that oldest and noblest of pirate traditions..." he trailed off, looking hopefully at his Captain as if expecting Jack to lose the stern look and fall into one of his wide-eyed crazed looks that made Gibbs think of adventure were they would come out alive.

"Never actually been one for tradition," Jack said amiably, gazing at the crew as a God might gaze upon the Earth. "Luff the sails and lay on iron!"

"Belay that, or we'll be a sitting duck," Barbossa shouted, his scratchy voice cutting across the crew's movement and Anna glared at him, her eyes narrowing and showing only a sliver of blue surrounded by smudged kohl.

"Belay that 'belay that'," Anna shouted in sync with Jack, a stolen glance lingering between the two as they spoke as one.

"But Captain," Gibbs tried to persuade Jack, his eyes wide and pleading on his Captain, his friend.

"Belay!" Jack shouted, his eyes cutting back to an insistent Gibbs as they climbed the stairs.

"The armada!"

"Belay!"

"The Endeavor..."

"Belay!"

"But we…"

"Kindly Shut it!" Jack shouted, his hands moving in violent hand motions as he finally reached the helm and glared at his first mate. Gibbs fell silent, his eyes finding the deck with a dejected look.

Jack came to stand beside her and it took all her strength to push down the tide of rolling emotions in her chest, to stem the flow of unnecessary panic at the thought that he didn't love her back and that their moments together would be their last spent as themselves. She wondered if she should leave after this, hop off in Tortuga and make a life for herself, return to the Hai Peng, her ship, and live as her own Captain, no bounds. Her soul would be sated, close to the sea forever, but her heart would remain barren and scarred, the wounds lingering there and she would never really be happy. Wouldn't be happy without Jack by her side, dreadlocks and odd mannerisms that she could relate to and the coy smile that made her heart beat too fast.

He flashed that smile at her as his gaze flicked between Anna and the armada, a knowing look in his eyes that she didn't seem to understand. He wondered if he should take the opportunity to tell her of his stirrings, or could he call them feelings by now? He's heard what she'd said, what she'd screamed in the middle of the numbing whirlwind of emotions they were drowning in. He's heard her admit to loving him. The word was like a curse to him, all times he'd ever gotten close the pain had been too much and even to love his mother was dangerous. But maybe he could tell her, take the moment to let the truth drip from his tongue like a hymn that she could sing along to, something they both knew.

Instead he waited, letting the silence stretch between them like the space between the sea and the stars, meeting on the out-of-reach horizon he earned for. It was calm, the moment carried on through the sounds of nervous crewmen but they didn't stir, gazes flickering to the other when they thought one wasn't looking. Blue and black meeting for second long intervals to try and convey some sort of comfort.

He couldn't tell her with the weight of her brother's death still on her shoulders, even if she didn't realize what his father had been saying when they'd been pulled under. He couldn't tell her on top of the guilt and the fear and the pain and the grief he knew she was struggling with. Jack had never known a woman so well, well enough to read the set of her shoulders and the twitching of her fingers. Jack had never cared that much.

He wondered if she was changing him, he didn't feel any different, still the same free bird wishing to chase a horizon. Still the same Captain Jack Sparrow. Maybe she was molding herself to him, fitting around his flaws until they were muffled and only the best of him could be seen. Or maybe they just fit that way, pieces finally joined in a way that felt like home.