A/N: I am really sorry it's taken so long to update. Thank you to lady angst, Starling Rising, JC, meowbooks, and master of time for your wonderful reviews and patience.

Thanks to jedipati, my wonderful beta!

Disclaimer: POTC belongs to Disney


Barbossa was sick of coming to the Isla de Muerta and surrendering to its mocking labyrinths, but he was finally feeling hope. One last time. Do what must be done.

Years of torment and constant panic; the maddeningly hopeless search of the entire Caribbean and all its rotten little isles for eight-hundred and eighty-two medallions scattered on the wind, finally coming to a close. He had been put past his mental endurance so many times; come to the end of his rope again and again, that he had become suspended in a place so unbearable it didn't pay to think about it. Now, seeing the end of his torment, he could already feel his mind reviving, bringing its head up and looking around.

How beautiful the loot looked; he had never truly noticed how much there was. He had more treasure than the richest king did and it meant he could do anything. Doors were opening right and left and he was desperate to believe he could soon enter them.

From where he stood by the chest, he watched the Turner boy, his unwilling savior, being forced up the side of the small mountain. Turner took every chance to trip and to put his weight on unsteady footholds, forcing Twigg and Khoeler to practically carry him up. The medallion swung this way and that over his chest and when his dark eyes flicked up, they burned with angry fear. He knew he was going to die.

Barbossa looked at the knife waiting on its bed of grinning gold skulls. The girl's blood stained its pale edge.

A delectable satisfaction flooded him. This be where heroics getcha, Bootstrap–yer family brought t'the chopping block. And t'Miss-Whatever-yer-name-might-be…your blood'll mingle wit' yer lover's. Closest thing you'll ever get to a wedding night, I reckon…and it be what you deserve fer your trickery.

Aha; that's what he would do after the curse was lifted; he'd find the hussy and make sure she knew very clearly how William Turner II had died, and then he'd…

Well, do whatever he felt like. For the first time in ten years.

Slowly, the raucous voices of his crew resolved into a chant. It was stronger this time; they lifted their hands and shook their torches with glee. Twigg and Khoeler shoved Turner's knees right up to the chest then forced him to bend over at the waist. It took both of them to keep him there and he still jerked against their hold, strong jaw set, breath quickening raggedly as the last grains of sand in his hourglass tumbled downward.

Barbossa snatched up the knife and the chanting of his men echoed so powerfully that it seemed the pagan gods chanted with them. He raised both hands high. "Begun by blood!" he exclaimed, letting his eyes roll back. "By blood un-"

Wait.

Eyes forward now, he froze.

"Jack!" Turner exclaimed, renewing his struggles. The chanting faded and everyone stared. Captain Jack Sparrow delicately raise his forefingers over his head then gestured outward with them in a salute.

"It's not possible!" Barbossa's voice held more than a little fear.

"Not probable," Jack Sparrow corrected carefully, as he came to the edge of the moat.

Turner twisted upright. "Where's Elizabeth?"

Jack halted on a stepping stone and gave a mollifying gesture. "She's safe, just like I promised. She's all set to marry Norrington, just like she promised–" he enjoyed Will's dismay " –you get to die for her, just like you promised. So, we're all men of our word, really. Except for Elizabeth who is, in fact, a woman."

"Shut up!" Barbossa finally snarled. "You're next."

The bosun, who had clapped a hand on Jack's shoulder, pulled Jack back. Barbossa angrily motioned to Twigg and Khoeler, who forced Turner over again. The young man clenched his teeth as Barbossa put the blade against his neck.

"You…don't want to be doing that, mate."

Barbossa gave his enemy a murderous glance. "No, I really think I do." He turned to watch the Turner boy's face as he cut his throat.

"Your funeral…" Jack's voice was resigned.

There was no curse word that could do Barbossa's feelings justice. He hesitated, then rolled his eyes and looked to Jack, who stood like a regretful parent, hands folded. "Why don't I want t'be doin' it?"

"Well, because–" Jack slapped the bosun's hand off his shoulder and lurched to the next stone " –because the HMS Dauntless, pride of the Royal Navy, is floating just offshore, waiting for you."

A fearful murmur rose as the men exchanged shocked glances. Will, upright again, fixed Jack in a baleful, pleading gaze.


It was crowded in the longboats. Marines sat shoulder-to-shoulder, muskets upright before them. They bobbed silently, all one hundred of them, in strategic places about the cavern opening. Nothing had come through the fog except moonlight, and in Norrington's longboat, things were particularly tense. Murtogg and Mullroy were lucky enough to be seated behind the sullen Commodore himself.

Murtogg turned his damp face to Mullroy. "What're we doing here?"

Mullroy stared at his friend for a moment. "The pirates," he said in a low, patient voice, "come out, unprepared and unawares. We catch 'em in a crossfire, send 'em down to see Old Hob."

"I know why we're here." Murtogg closed his eyes, mouth puckering. "I meant, why aren't we doing what he wants–that Mr. Sparrow said we should do–wit' the cannons and all?"

"Because it was Mr. Sparrow who said it," Norrington snapped disdainfully, shocking the two Marines into wide-eyed silence.

Cautiously Murtogg murmured, "You think he wasn't telling the truth?"


Jack gazed earnestly at Barbossa. "Just hear me out, mate. You order your men to row out to the Dauntless, they do what they do best..." There was an appreciative chuckle from below. Barbossa propped one foot up on the chest and grimly ignored it.

"Robert's your uncle, Fannie's your aunt; there you are with two ships…" Jack's voice softened deliciously, "the makings of you very own fleet. 'Course, you'll take the grandest one as your flagship, and who's to argue? But of the Pearl..." He leaned forward, wide eyes intense. "Name me captain. I'll sail under your colors; I'll give you ten percent of me plunder. And you get to introduce yourself as...Commodore Barbossa. Savvy?"

"I suppose in exchange, you won't want me t'kill the whelp." Barbossa spat the last word at Will.

"No, no, no, no, no," Jack said easily. "Not at all. By all means, kill the whelp."

Will gaped.

"Just not yet. Wait to lift the curse..." Jack's eyes slid to Will's, "until the opportune moment. For instance…" he grabbed a handful of medallions and stared into Barbossa's eyes, "after you kill Norrington's men. Every–" a medallion fell back into the chest– "last" –clink– "one." –clink.

The pirates below murmured hungrily as the two captains gazed at each other.

"You've been planning this from the beginning," Will spat suddenly, trying again to break free. "Ever since you learned my name!"

Jack stared at him. "Yeah."

Barbossa removed his foot from the edge of the chest. "I want fifty percent 'a your plunder."

"Fifteen," Jack shot back.

"Forty."

"Twenty-five!"

Barbossa considered.

"I'll buy you the hat," Jack said. "A really big one...Commodore."

Barbossa smiled. "We have an accord." The two shook hands across Will, and then Jack turned, throwing his arms wide. "All hands to the boats!"

He froze under Barbossa's icy gaze. "Apologies." His arms came down and he pressed his hands humbly together. "You give the orders."

Awed by the Jack's spectacular oddness, Barbossa watched him brandish prayerful hands and bow his head. Then Barbossa turned to his men. "Gents. Take a walk."

Laughing in grim anticipation, they filed out of the cavern. Jack turned to Barbossa, brow wrinkled. "Not to the boats?"

Barbossa didn't stoop to answer him.

Pintel and Ragetti were hurrying toward one of the passages after the others, cackling to each other, when a closed white parasol slammed across Pintel's chest, stopping them both. Their grins faded as they saw the one who held the parasol.

The brown, scarred bosun grinned evilly at them, then turned serious, which was even worse.


The moon was full tonight, a ghoul glaring at the world. Its light turned the sea floor a pale, cold blue, the color of drowned flesh.

The poisonous sand around the Isla de Muerta was untouched by coral or seaweed. Black boulders rough enough to rend flesh at the slightest touch shoved shoulders toward the sky, sheltering the most miserly of sea creatures in their cracks and shadows. Tiny schools of fish avoided the light, grouping in the shadow cast by the floating Dauntless, flicking their iridescent bodies in the unchanging twilight.

Unchanging, until tonight.

Not far off, tall white gleams materialized, and there came the faintest crackling. The fish fled in a hundred directions, braving the light to avoid what stalked closer on streaming legs.

The water tried to swallow the crackling of all those exposed bones, but could only flow through their hair and tattered clothing, sliding past their lidless eyeballs and through their jaws and ribs and spines.

The cursed crew of the Black Pearl marched slowly out of the moonlight, gaining muscle and skin as the Dauntless' shadow enveloped them. Their expressions never changed, their chests never moved, but water roiled into their noses and filled their frozen lungs. Ready weapons gleamed in their hands; years of built-up blood and dirt washed off by brine.

They were an army from the cracks of Hell come to remind the ignorant mortals that all is never well...

The dance of fate had begun.

Thanks for reading! :)