"Your daughter, Captain," Chevalle said, motioning to Rose with a flourish.

Rose just stared at Teague, wide-eyed in anticipation. Teague's expression was unwavering and unreadable, though he eyed her up and down. She could feel that he was about to deny this, so she gave a small movement, slowly lifting her left hand which clutched the twin pendants he had once given both Jack's and her mothers so many years ago.

She saw Teague recognize them, then look back at her with wide eyes. She raised a defiant eyebrow as if to say, Go ahead. Deny me again. I dare you.

He sighed. "Aye," he growled, looking to Chevalle. Chevalle only stared back at him expectantly.

Teague kept his gaze, uncertain of what to do next. Finally, he said, "Thank…you?"

Chevalle continued staring, arms crossed over his chest.

"Father," Rose interjected, though the word felt uncomfortable on her tongue. "I was safely returned to you. Remember the reward you promised?"

She held her breath, waiting for his response. If he denied her claims, she could be killed right then and there. He looked at her, his eyes shooting daggers at her. After a silence that felt like it lasted for years, Teague finally conceded. "Aye, indeed. I had nearly forgotten…" He began to look around himself, trying to come up with anything that could be used as payment. When he couldn't find anything immediately, he then looked apologetically at Chevalle, only to find the French captain staring at his hand. Rose followed his gaze to find a find a large, red ruby ring reflecting light off of its sharply cut edges.

Teague noticed Chevalle's longing gaze, then bitterly glared at Rose, whose eyes glimmered with a challenge as she merely shrugged. Begrudgingly, Teague pursed his lips and yanked his hand out of the ring. "Your payment, Captain," he said in unenthusiastic monotone. "How can I ever thank you enough."

Chevalle happily pocketed the ring. Satisfied with the trade, he then approached Teague. "I could not help but notice that I am not the last to arrive. I do not see Barbossa, Sao Feng, or—"

"No," Teague cut him off before he could say Jack's name. Rose winced at the mention of those particular three missing Pirate Lords; They were all in cahoots after the Singapore attack. They most likely still hadn't returned from their journey to the Locker.

Teague continued, "We await them still, but the call is out, and I do not doubt their impending arrival." He clapped him on the back and led him and out towards the entrance, his men quick to follow. "In the meantime, resupply your ship, take advantage of the town and the tavern. Rest assured, we convene in no more than a fortnight."

Chevalle looked unconvinced. "But with so many ships here, the town will surely be overrun, its resources depleted, non?"

"Surely not, monsieur," Teague scoffed. "We are a fortress—the Brethren has met three times before, we are ready for anything."

Not anything, Rose thought gravely. But then she read Teague's stiff posture and forced grin, she realized something; He's lying! she thought. The island was entirely unprepared to handle this many pirates just sitting in waiting for a missing third of their brethren that might never arrive. Resources were already scarce for pirates, and with thousands of crewman infiltrating the town, Rose shuddered at the thought of how little time Jack, Barbossa, and Sao Feng had to make an appearance, lest the Pirate Lords revolt and take their leave. They would all then be caught by the encroaching East India Trading Company upon making their escape, and Shipwreck Cove would be utterly defenseless.

Teague's words must have finally convinced Chevalle, for he was descending the stairs with his crewmen to make their way back towards the base of the structure and back across the cove towards the town of Shipwreck, where they would most likely discover just how scarce their resources were.

Once they were out of sight, Rose suppressed her trepidation at talking with this mysterious figure she never really knew, and remembered the task at hand; She had to tell Teague about the dangers that lie ahead for the pirates. She stepped forward to speak with him. Just then, however, he spun around to face her.

"You owe me a ring," he stated, voice level.

Rose scoffed. "Consider it payment for a lifetime of neglect."

Teague held up his hand to stop her. "Hold on a moment, now—"

Rose was quicker, however. "No, I'm not here for that. What's past is past. I come for more important matters." Without a second thought, Rose let it all spill out of her mouth. "The three Pirate Lords we await will most likely never come, at least not in a timely manner. Jack is dead. Barbossa has gone to retrieve him from Davy Jones's Locker."

Teague shook his head. "Wait, what are you—"

Rose continued as though nothing had changed. "He's in cahoots with Sao Feng. It's safe to assume that the three are together and have been detained in the Locker, if not dead altogether. We must convene without them."

"We cannot—"

"The East India Trading Company knows the name of Shipwreck Cove. It won't be long before they know our location, if they don't know it already."

"How—"

"I say you rally the Lords we have here, we take the ships and we fortify Shipwreck Cove's defenses. The reef should keep us safe from enemy ships unaware of it. It's the best chance we have."

"HOLD ON!" Teague roared. "Good lord, girl! You show up out of the blue, report to me that my son is dead, order me to break the sacred Pirate Code, the one I manage and uphold…and even cost me a priceless ring, all in a manner of sheer minutes! Just a moment, please!"

"We don't have a moment!" she protested. "We've already wasted so much time, and so many lives have been lost. Every moment we stand bickering over what action to take is another action lost. The enemy gains that much ground over us! We must take the defensive!"

Teague laughed in disbelief. "You seem to think I hold some authority over the Brethren."

Rose only blinked. "Are you not the Keeper of the Code?"

"Only!" he replied. "That is my duty alone. I hold no power to convene them, let alone command them into battle! And even if I did, that would be breaking the Code I keep!"

Rose furrowed her brow. "I'm not sure you realize how drastic of a situation we're in; The East India Trading Company has command over Jones. A…fiend…stole his heart and returned it to Beckett, their commander. They have the most powerful ship in the world at their beck and call, but we have numbers on our side!"

"No, we don't," her father replied gravely. "How do you know all of this anyway? About the Company, about Sao Feng and…and Jack?" He took a moment, reflecting on this unexpected news of his son's death. "Why aren't you with Barbossa if you know of his rescue?"

"Does it matter?" Rose asked. "I come here to warn you. Take what I'm telling you and act on it."

"'Does it matter?'" Teague pointed at her hand which still clutched the pendants. "Are you not my daughter? Did I not just pay a reward for your return because you are my daughter?"

"Because I made you pay a reward?" she reminded him. "True, I am your daughter but that holds no merit now—the time for that has passed, and any residual bitterness is inconsequential now. We must ally ourselves for the good of those men out there!" She pointed out towards the rest of the island. "I have been to Port Royal, I escaped the hangman's noose, and I have seen and heard the executions. Our relation is superfluous now. I need your help to fight this injustice."

Teague took this all in, then shook his head. He went over to the large meeting table and pulled out one of the many chairs surrounding it and sat down. He stayed there for awhile, head in one of his hands, still looking at her. She remained standing, wringing her hands in anticipation.

"You look like her, you know. Anna…" he finally said. Rose didn't know what to say, or even what to think, so for a time, there was nothing to be said. He finally decided on, "I knew this day would come. You would try to find me. The circumstances are a bit unexpected. And Jack…" his eyes grew distant in thought, but then he shook himself out of it. "He'll be fine. He's a clever lad, he's made it out of worse." He then looked back at Rose. "Jones finally caught up with him, aye?"

She nodded, taking a seat nearby.

"He stayed with you, then?" he asked. "After you left my ship?"

Rose nodded briefly. "More or less."

"And?" he prodded her for more details. "Where have you been? How did you get here?"

She instantly grew cold again. "It would take too long to explain," she quipped. "Maybe you shouldn't have dismissed me nearly two decades ago."

"Now wait a moment," he began to protest.

"'A gypsy changeling,' I think you called me? Isn't that right?" she spat.

Teague cringed at the memory. "Jack didn't know. About Anna. And I…I knew you existed. I didn't want to face that truth. It was hard enough raising a son. I couldn't take on a daughter as well."

"Because I was a daughter?" she hissed.

"It wouldn't have made a difference either way."

Rose snorted. "Ah. It's my blood then, is it?"

Teague leaned forward in his chair, eyes aflame in anger. "You were a product of a lapse in judgement, nothing more."

Rose felt a deep pang in her chest at these words as the truth set in. Teague could see how these words affected her, and he gently tried to back out of them. "…as were much of my actions; a lapse in judgement. I should not have dismissed you as my daughter. I should not have driven Jack off. And Anna…there's much regret there."

Rose just stared at the ground. "As I said; What's past is past. We must look ahead to the future. We're in very real danger, and we need to fight."

Teague nodded. "They know of Shipwreck Cove?"

"Aye."

"But how?"

Rose held back the truth. The last thing she needed was more judgement from this man. "It doesn't matter! With every second wasted, they grow ever nearer. I came to warn you, that is all. We must be on alert and build up our defenses."

Teague stood, and began to walk away from her towards the far rear wall. "I can't," he said simply.

Rose's stomach burned in rage. She leapt to her feet and quickly followed along behind her father. "You can't or you won't?"

He walked up a small flight of haphazardly crooked steps, and pried open a door, disappearing into the darkness. Even though it meant Rose losing her sight, she was so angry that he was avoiding her requests for help that she marched in right after him. "TEAGUE!" she cried.

"I can't," his voice pierced through the dark. Rose jumped when she heard what sounded like a large book was tossed onto a wooden table. She then grew very confused as she heard a dog bark and what sounded like jingling keys. It then sounded like Teague unlocked the book and opened the cover. "I am bound by the Code," he said.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Aren't they more like 'guidelines?' What if I find a loophole?"

"If you can, then I commend you. Be my guest."

Rose nodded, energized by the challenge. "Light enough candles in here and I shall."


"Ah!" Rose cried, now entering hour five of scouring over the Code in her father's study. "How about this: 'The convening of the Court must take place in the period of one day!' It has been far longer than that! This isn't a convening, then, this is something else entirely!"

Teague was pacing back and forth across the room. "Nope," he said, shooting her down for what must have been the thirtieth time. "That's the actual meeting. Convening can't begin unless all nine Lords are present. Not a loophole."

Rose groaned and persistently returned back to the book. "My vision's starting to fade," she reported. "I need more light."

Teague grunted in acknowledgement and fetched some more. As he lit them around her, he asked, "So after you revived Barbossa, how did you get to Singapore?"

As she had been working, Teague had been asking various questions about the past twenty-six years of her life; the life he had largely missed. She had answered his questions absentmindedly, as the majority of her attention was primarily on her work.

"The remaining Pearl crew, Tia and Barbossa sailed under the flag of Captain Frees. We bargained with him to sack a Company ship that would take us around Cape Horn."

"And then at Singapore? For Sao Feng's charts, eh?"

"Aye, we planned it all out. The Company caught up with us, however. That's where I got separated. They made off with Sao Feng, and I was taken back to Port Royal."

"That's where you saw the executions?"

"Aye."

"And how did you make it out?"

Rose deflected from this topic again. "I managed to escape. That's all. I met up with Chevalle, and now I'm here." She turned a page and cried out in triumph. "Ah ha! Just as I thought! This Code says nothing about what should happen if a Pirate Lord dies without passing on their piece of eight!"

Teague furrowed his brow. "And?"

"And… What happens should a Pirate Lord die and no one knows of it? Then it comes time for the Brethren Court to meet and it's only then that the others discover what has happened? Wouldn't that render that Pirate Lord and their domain obsolete?"

"Why are Sao Feng, Barbossa, and Jack not here in the first place?" Teague replied evenly. "That very reason—it's not a possibility. They must return at all costs, even from the dead."

"But what if Tia Dalma couldn't retrieve the body to revive it, like Barbossa? Or one couldn't travel to the Locker, like what the Pearl is doing for Jack? What then? There should be a loophole in that case! Can we please write an amendment?"

Teague rolled his eyes, "For the thousandth time, no! This is the way the Code was written, and that's that!"

Rose sighed and slammed the back cover of the Code shut and sat back in her chair. She reached out and began to pet the unexplained gray dog Teague was keeping in his study, who kept the keys to the code in his mouth at all times. "Well, then I suppose we're doomed then. Without a loophole we have to, what, just wait for the enemy to come and haul us all away to be hanged?"

Teague too sat down in a chair nearby, and his silence wasn't helping Rose's nerves at all. After awhile, he finally asked, "And at what point in your story do you discover that the East India Trading Company has been informed of our location?"

"As far as I know," she replied, her jaw tight, "They don't know our location. Only our name."

"That makes all the difference," he said gravely. "As soon as they know this place exists, it makes it all the easier to find us. Torture a few thousand convicted pirates until someone speaks, and there you have it." He leaned closer to her. "So I ask again because it does matter, how were they informed of our location?"

She finally looked up at him, knowing her demure expression had already given her away. "Me," her voice squeaked.

To her surprise, Teague did not appear angry, but only asked frankly, "I thought as much from your blackened eye. They tortured it out of you."

"Aye," she murmured. "In a sense."

"In a sense?"

"Their Admiral. Norrington… I…" she felt tears rush to her eyes, and she looked upwards to keep them from spilling over. "I was a bloody fool."

"Norrington? Surely not Lawrence?"

She shook her head, jaw tight as she growled, "James."

Teague's face flushed in fury. "He hit you?"

"No!" she corrected. "He never hurt me…physically. He…"

"What?!"

"I fell for him like some lightheaded waif!" she shouted. "I let my guard down and he took advantage of that."

He sighed, saying nothing. After a moment, he stood and gazed out of his window overlooking the cove for a long time.

Rose was left to ruminate in her pain and fury. "'Just like her mother,' I'm sure you're thinking. We lose our heads when we lose our hearts."

"No," he briskly negated. "I wasn't thinking that at all." He looked over his shoulder at her. "Rather, I was thinking, 'Just like his father.'"

"You knew his father?"

He snorted, looking back out towards the ocean. "And the boy. I saved him from drowning." He then turned to her. "Wish I hadn't now."

Rose was shocked at the coincidence. "When was this?"

"Nearly…thirty years? Before Anna, I know. The boy couldn't have been more than six. Shame. Would have been a fine lad were that cruel bastard Lawrence not his father." He turned his gaze to his daughter's face, as he said with kindness, "Though he must have had some redeeming qualities if he caught your eye."

Though this was a rare moment of warmth from Teague, Rose recoiled in disgust. "It wasn't real, none of it. I was sick and lonesome. He knew how to…get inside my head. And he did, and now look where we are. He currently commands the Flying Dutchman, they surely have figured out our location by now, we're three Pirate Lords short, and there's nothing to be done but wait for our demise."

"Do you know why the Brethren convenes?" Teague asked, suddenly changing the subject.

She stood to join him where she stood, arms crossed over her chest. "Aye, as far as I know," she replied. "Davy Jones did it to bind the sea goddess Calypso to human form so that the sea could belong to man. All because she charged him to ferry souls to the other side and she broke his heart."

Teague snorted. "Sure, that's what Calypso would have told you. And while it's largely true, it's become so much more than that." Rose blinked. What Calypso would have told her? What did that mean? Teague continued his speech before she had a chance to question it, however. "It's about camaraderie. It's a unification of the world. No one else on this planet, not even the stronghold of the Trading Company in all it's fearsome glory, has this sort of unity. And it lasts only a short time, then we return to swindling and killing one another again. But sing that song and we know exactly who we are. Sing that song and we come together as one.

"That's why it's a pirate's life for me; We are without a country. That's the life we've chosen. We are beholden to no one but the seas we sail. We hold no allegiances but to her, our captains, our vessels, and ourselves. If not piracy, then what? Working under unfathomably horrible conditions for little payoff all in the name of 'king and country?' No. Not me. Not anyone here.

"That's why we have chosen the lives we live, Rosie. It's freedom. It's lawlessness. And certainly, it's dangerous and at times…violent. So violent. But I'd take that any day before I work for those who invade a land and take their people as slaves. I'd take that before I'd take…anything." He turned and looked back at his daughter. "The Brethren Court is freedom."

Though she was moved by his words, Rose asked, "But that freedom was gained only by imprisoning another being, was it not? And…what did you mean 'Calypso told you?' Calypso hasn't told me anything! I only know her servant, Tia Dalma!"

Teague blinked. "Is that what she told you? That she was her servant?"

Rose ran her hands through her hair. "She lied to me," she whispered. "I knew it was her. I asked her and she denied it."

Her father sighed. "Makes sense that she would. The more people that know, the more danger she's in."

"I was her student," she protested. "I wasn't just 'anyone.'"

"Would it have changed your opinion of her?"

"Well it certainly has now!" Rose took a sharp inhale. "How long has she been here?"

"Centuries."

"And Jack knew?"

"Always. How else did you think he learned of the Black Pearl? It was Jones who raised her from the depths for him. It was Calypso who told him of Jones in the first place."

Rose was incredulous. "Any more revelations you'd care to get out of the way, Father? 'Rose, Norrington and I are old friends.' "Rose, your bloody mentor is a BLOODY GODDESS!'" She pursed her lips, pulse racing. "How many other siblings do I have, Teague? Go ahead!"

Teague rolled his eyes. "Just Jack, as far as I know. But I wouldn't be in shock if more of you turn up to accuse me of negligence."

"You're incorrigible," Rose scoffed in disgust as she turned to leave the room.

"Where do you think you're going?" he called after her.

"First to that wretched tavern in town. If you're not going to tell those pirates out there that they are merely waiting for their untimely deaths, then I shall!"

Teague raced to block her path. "Absolutely not!"

Rose sneered, "Look, while I would love to believe that Jack will be alive and well and in this very room tomorrow, we cannot wait on those chances alone. And you honestly intend to honor the Code above the lives of thousands of men and women?"

"And, what?" he retorted, "You think they'll listen to you? What authority over them do you have?"

"If you say—"

"I won't say a thing!" he retorted. "I won't cause widespread panic. We wait for Jack."

Rose almost didn't dare to speak the words for fear that they would come true, but she finally uttered, "And if Jack never comes?"

Teague took a forlorn moment to consider this, then settled on, "Improvisation."

Rose closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief of how similar he and Jack were. Grumbling in frustration, she retired back to her chair where the dog laid now, slumbering at its legs.

"What, is that all?" Teague asked.

"Until you come to your senses, yes," she replied. "Which certainly won't be happening tonight!"

Teague sighed, "Until morning, then."

"I suppose," she grumbled.

She listened as he settled himself in his armchair and let her blindness surround her as he extinguished the candles on his desk. Now settled into the darkness, she waited with her eyes shut for sleep to overtake her, but minutes passed all while she was still wide awake. Her stomach was churning with anxiety.

"I'm sorry, by the way," Teague suddenly said in the darkness.

Rose furrowed her brow, uncertain what to make of this bizarre change of heart. It was unclear what he was sorry for, for he was in the wrong on so many fronts. Finally, she replied, "I don't need the apology. Jack's mother needs your apology for being unfaithful, yet she's gone. My mother needs your apology for abandoning her, yet she's gone. It's too late for that."

"No, not for me. I meant that I'm sorry about Norrington."

She shifted uncomfortably. "Why would you be sorry for that? You weren't the one to hurt me."

"I have before," he said. "And as I said, I met the lad when he was but a boy, but it was clear then that his nature is rather sensitive. Whoever you saw was whatever his father made him into, but he certainly isn't heartless. Take it from someone who knows, Rosie," he said in final thought. "He's going to regret hurting you for the rest of his days."