In the Captain's quarters, Rose took a seat in an armchair, defeated. Her shoulders slumped forward, and she hung her head low.

Elizabeth leaned up against a nearby wall, looking down at her friend. "You want to tell me what that was all about?" she asked. Her voice was gentle, but pressing for further details.

There was no escaping this. Rose was discovered pointed a loaded pistol at one of Elizabeth's former colleague. There could be no further suppression in what she had done. Up until then, she had kept details about her capture on Fort Charles very vague to everyone except her father. She began slowly, her eyes still fixated on the floorboards in front of her. "Do you remember where we met?"

Elizabeth nodded. "Of course. We nearly ran you down with our carriage, James and I. Haven't we already made this connection?"

Rose took a deep breath, already on edge at even just the mentioning of his first name. "After that, Norrington grew quite accustomed to seeing me as he chased Jack and I across the Caribbean." She looked up. "He's the officer who freed me from Fort Charles after I was captured at Singapore."

Elizabeth's eyes went wide. "James freed you?"

"Well, that's all a matter of perspective, really," Rose snorted. "He recognized me in the execution line and pulled me out to interrogate me. By day I would stay in a cell, but by night I could sleep in his office." Rose shook herself from the memory. "The point is, he knew the only way to get to me was to get me to trust him. And I ultimately did." The hairs of her arms stood on edge as she finally voiced her confession of guilt aloud. "Elizabeth, that's how the Company knew of Shipwreck Cove. I told Norrington." Rose was suddenly filled with shame again, and she began to stammer. "I…I wasn't right in the head. I had just lost Ben…and Jack, and all of you, and…it wasn't real, any of it-"

"What wasn't real?"

"My feelings!" she said in exasperation. Then, more reservedly, she muttered, "He made me feel…things."

Elizabeth was dumbfounded. "Did you fancy him?"

"…I kissed him."

When no verbal response came, Rose looked up at Elizabeth to gauge her reaction to the fact that her most trusted friend had fallen for her former fiancee, but was confused to find Elizabeth trying to suppress a grin.

"Do you mock me?" asked Rose incredulously.

"No! Not a bit, I just…" stuttered Elizabeth, now fully unable to hide her amusement. "I can't believe two parts of my life collided like that without my knowing. Go on, how did he respond?"

"He went along with it. He said he'd figure out a way in which we could escape, and I…foolishly told him that the pirates were meeting at Shipwreck Cove. He then called in the guards, and they took me back to my cell to be hanged within a fortnight."

Elizabeth shook her head. "But…that doesn't make any sense. You said he freed you!"

"And free me he did the morning after. It was the day he was to commandeer the Dutchman, and he snuck me a key in some food he brought for me." She looked up at her friend. "I suppose guilt won out. That's why today, I broke off from the rest of you and went to the Fort. Just in case he survived the Maelstrom. But according to your friend, it would appear that he did not."

Elizabeth walked to Rose, taking a seat on one of the arms of the chair in which she sat. "No," she said quietly. "All that any officer who survived the war knows is that James never returned. They presume his death." She took a pause. "I can confirm it."

Rose looked up at her in alarm.

"I was there," Elizabeth said sadly. "He died saving me and the crew of the Empress. Bootstrap had gone a bit round the bend by that point, and he saw what James was doing and killed him for it. One of the first things I asked Will once he became the captain of the Dutchman was to look for James aboard just in case he joined Jones's crew after he died but…he didn't."

Rose said nothing, and instead just silently took all of this information in.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" Elizabeth finally said. "You could have asked me yourself about what happened to James."

Rose couldn't bring herself to look at Elizabeth any longer, for she was once again swimming in a large ocean of conflicting emotions that she was failing to process with grace. "It was already a humiliation that I endangered all of our lives because of my foolishness," she said. "I didn't want anyone to know anything more about it."

With that, she stood to leave, for she suddenly felt that she needed some time alone.

"Rose?" Elizabeth called after her. "If James had survived, and he was there at the Fort, what would you have done? What was to be accomplished by seeing him again?"

Rose cast a look over her shoulder. Demurely, she replied, "I was going to kill him. He had betrayed all of you by taking the heart for his own gains, had betrayed me, wanted Jack dead…he needed to be stopped, and I needed to be the one to finish it."

Gently, Elizabeth protested, "But he set you free. Trust me, I knew James's nature. He would not have done that if he didn't feel remorse." She then stood, placing a hand on Rose's shoulder. "The night he died, I too offered to bring him with me to Shipwreck Cove. He chose instead to ensure that I got there, and he perished for it. He was a hero, Rose. Believe me."

Rose continued to fight her emotions. She managed a forced smile and said simply, "If you say so."

Before she could exit the room, Elizabeth called out once more for her. "And Rose," she said. "You're never a fool for feeling love."

Rose shook her head. "It wasn't love," she replied. "And I was a fool." She walked out the door and back onto the deck to busy herself with anything, any job or activity…just anything. If nothing could be done to help her kill the demons that haunted her past, then it was time to repress them again, just like she had always done.

A thought occurred to her, however, which caused her to stop. She looked back to the place where she had been stabbed by the bayonet, touching the shirt now crimson with her dried blood. She poked her finger through the hole in the shirt and felt around the place where the wound should have still been. But there truly was nothing except her skin as it always had been. She can't have imagined it all…could she?


"So what I'm thinking," Elizabeth said with a grunt as she and Rose slid a crate into the center of the room. "Is that this will be your storeroom."

Rose looked around the space. They were back at the Shipwreck Cove fortress, a large, towering structure made of various pieces of dozens of vessels claimed by the treacherous reef that surrounded Shipwreck. Rose had been here for a few months now, first with her father as the Pirate Lords gathered for the fourth and final Brethren Court. Elizabeth was declared the Pirate King there, and though her purpose in this role had run its course as soon as the war had been won, the two women had elected to stay to turn Shipwreck Island into the pirate safe haven of their dreams. The fortress consisted of three levels, and they currently stood at the ground level, which was the biggest of the three. "This room?" Rose asked. "But it's immense!"

"Where's that map?" Elizabeth asked, and Rose instantly went to a pile where she had placed one of her father's maps of the island. Rose kneeled on the ground beside the crate with Elizabeth, and they together spread the map out over it.

"Here we are," Elizabeth said, pointing to the circular cove on the map, "And just over this hill is the town, correct? And what are the merits of the town?"

"Tavern and brothel, market, blacksmith shop, tailor, and stables."

"Precisely. Small, but functional, and all things that a pirate could benefit from. What resources have we?"

"Breadfruit," Rose listed. "A freshwater spring just west of here. Plenty of timber for repairs. Fish."

"But what's missing is all the more important" noted Elizabeth. "The Cove is an ideal place to park vessels so that they are out of sight of enemy ships. And upstairs at the old Brethren meeting grounds is the Pirate Code and a meeting place. I can conduct business there with passing captains in terms of how long they can stay, the extent of their repairs and restocking, and the like. Any concerns with the Code can be managed by either myself or your father, if he's in.

"This floor will be yours. All the goods that we took from Calypso's shack are invaluable. Hospital, medicinal goods, trinkets and valuables. We'll stock them here! It's a trading outpost of sorts. And I think you are just the person to manage it."

Rose couldn't help but grin at this plan. After all her time spent as a healer under Calypso's care during her childhood, she knew she was more than capable of this task. She also longed to fill up the crooked, bent, and cave-like walls of the fortress with all sorts of bric-a-brac. Just imagining what the future of this island would be like was a bright and much-needed ray of sunshine for Rose.

"But a trading outpost suggests that we will have a constant influx of new goods," Rose pondered. "How will we ensure of this?"

Elizabeth's eyes shined with excitement. "I gave the Bountiful to Jefferson. It made sense; I won't be able to sail her, as I must stay here for Will's heart. So I gave him the vessel on the conditions that he make frequent returns, giving us half the loot he takes. That will at least get us started, and then other vessels can trade with us later on once we build repute."

This was an airtight plan. Elizabeth truly had thought of everything. But Rose had one final question. "And what of the second floor of the fortress?" she asked. "What will we do with that?"

"I looked at that," replied Elizabeth. "There's four distinct areas which could be considered 'rooms,' would you agree?"

"Aye."

"Two for storage? Two for you and me?" she suggested.

Rose grinned. "That sounds absolutely ideal."

Elizabeth was elated. "It will be a challenge, and quite a good deal of work, but I think we can do it together. With just a bit of…" Her voice trailed off, and suddenly her face lost its color. Her eyes then grew wide and distant and her jaw tightened.

"What is it?" Rose asked, laying a hand on her arm. "Elizabeth?"

She then jumped to her feet and raced out the door to the sea, and began to wretch into it. Rose followed closely behind, waiting until she had finished, and then took her by the arm and led her back inside.

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth apologized, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "Something just came over me."

"Don't apologize," Rose said. "Do you think it's something you ate?"

Elizabeth grimaced, looking guiltily up at her friend. "If I'm being perfectly honest, no. It's been awhile of this."

Rose was alarmed by this, and cleared the map off the crate and sat her down on it. "How long?" she asked as she began a routine and basic examination on her to evaluate her health.

"Just a week or so," she replied. "It's just been nausea and fatigue mostly. I feel incredibly tired most of the day."

Rose checked her eyes, throat, and was beginning to feel along her jawline. To fill the space, Elizabeth said, "I don't usually get ill. It's uncommon for me. Even on the way to Singapore, it was a wonder that I didn't fall ill when Will did." She smiled as she began to reminisce, "I remember when we were young, I came down with an illness. I had spent every day for months with Will, playing and talking. That was in the early days, right after we arrived in Port Royal. Well, when I fell ill, I vanished without notice, so naturally Will was concerned. He came to my home, marched bravely up to our door and demanded to see my father. But once he had, he realized that he knew me only as 'Elizabeth.' He didn't know if I had a title, so he mistakenly asked to see 'the princess.'

"Well, you can imagine that my father was rather confused. He thought Will had gone mad and sent him back to Mr. Brown's shop. Thankfully, after a week of bedrest, I was back to it, and we were able to clear up the confusion." She laughed at the memory, then grew somber. "That was before my governess decided that it was no longer appropriate for a lady to keep company with an apprentice. But those days with him were…blessed."

Elizabeth was drawn out from her story when she noticed that Rose's face held a worried expression.

"What?" Elizabeth asked.

Rose looked up at her, mouth fumbling for the right words to ask a delicate question. "When…well, what were the—" She cleared her throat and began again. "After the war, when you went ashore with Will…what was the…nature of your time here?"

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "We're husband and wife, Rose. What do you think?"

Rose put her hands up defensively. "Just thought I'd ask!" She then struggled to suppress a grin as she said. "I…just wanted to make sure that my diagnosis is correct."

Elizabeth's eyes instantly filled with tears as soon as she realized what she meant. She then barreled into Rose, clinging to her in an embrace.

"Oh my god," she said through a laugh. "Oh Rose, you'll help me, won't you."

Rose burst into laughter. "No, you're on your own, Elizabeth. Best of luck delivering a child entirely on your own."

Elizabeth pulled herself out of the hug. "My child," she exclaimed. "Will and I…are having a child!"