Hi everyone! Sorry I'm a week late but, with all the festivities, I didn't get much writing done ;) Anyway, thank you to all those who rewieved, followed, and faved this story! To my Guest reviewer: yes, they will get along, as you're about to see. That is, until... well. Spoilers.

So, this chapter is almost completely original. There's not much action but a lot of talking ;) I'm basically laying the foundation for Isabella and Will's friendship. You'll also get a few details about Isabella's past.

And without further ado, I'll let you read the story.

A few minutes into the journey, after making a few adjustments to the sails, Isabella took it upon herself to check over the stores and the powder magazine. If they didn't have enough food or water, they'd have to buy more in Tortuga... Same for the powder and the cannonballs, although she fervently hoped that it wouldn't come to a battle between the Black Pearl and the Interceptor. And if it did, she pondered, their only chance of survival would be to disable the Pearl so they could escape, preferably before the unkillable pirates boarded the Interceptor.

Satisfied with her inspection, she took some cheese and dried meat and two loaves of bread from the stores and went back to the quarterdeck. Much to her surprise, she found Will clinging for dear life to the spanker boom, which Jack had swung around so it now extended over the water. A loop of rope was holding the wheel in place while Jack talked to Will, the young man's sword in his hand. One foot on the deck and the other on the stair below, Isabella took in the sight with a mixture of perplexity and mild exasperation—Men... Can't even leave them alone for twenty minutes—,her eyebrows raised and her lips parted.

"Now, me, for example, I can let you drown," Jack was saying. "But then Izzy would be as cross as two sticks with me and I can't have that."

"Wise decision," the Brine-Tongue chimed in, walking up to the case that housed the wheel's barrel and setting the food on it.

She grasped the rope and raised questioning eyebrows at her friend.

"Lesson over?"

"We'll see."

Isabella took that as a go-ahead, removed the rope, and swung Will back on board, the rough landing forcing a grunt from the young man. Jack calmly pointed the cutlass at him.

"So, can you sail under the command of a pirate..." Jack flipped the sabre and, holding it by its blade, offered it to Will. "Or can you not?"

Will took the weapon hesitantly and looked up at the pirate.

"Tortuga?"

Jack grinned while Isabella pulled a disgusted face.

"Tortuga."

"Would anyone like to tell me what happened?" Isabella inquired dryly as Will got to his feet and Jack took back the wheel.

She listened to her friend's story about Will's pirate father, Bootstrap Bill, one hand playing thoughtfully with her button pendant and the other cupping her elbow. Was that why Jack had decided to help Will, she wondered? Because he had known and liked his father? Unlikely. That calculating look she knew so well... No, there was something else, and she firmly intended to worm it out of him.

"Did you know him? My father?" Will asked her, interrupting her train of thought.

"'Fraid not," she said with a small shrug. "Or if I met him, I don't remember." She waited for the young man to nod in acknowledgement before continuing. "And now, let's eat before we keel over."

No one discussed the order. In fact, the two men swooped down on the food with such ravening enthusiasm that, for a moment, Isabella wondered whether she had brought enough of it.

"So, how are the stores?" Jack inquired, his mouth full of bread.

Isabella swallowed her mouthful of meat before speaking.

"Not too bad. We've got dried meat, bread, cheese, peas, some rum, plenty of water. We might want to buy some fresh fruits, though, and maybe some oatmeal. There should be enough gunpowder but it seems they hadn't finished loading the cannonballs, so we'll have to get more. Although, I suggest we do our best to avoid a battle against the Pearl."

Jack hummed in agreement as he stuffed a piece of cheese into his mouth. They ate in silence after that, which was probably for the best as the contents of Jack's mouth interested his friend only very mildly. A few minutes later, there was nothing left but crumbs. Much to Isabella's amusement, Will suddenly gave a huge yawn that almost dislocated his jaw.

"You should go and get some rest," the Italian pirate said. "We won't reach Tortuga before nightfall."

"Suppose I should," the young man mumbled.

With these words, he went down the stairs to the main deck. Isabella brushed the crumbs off the wheel's pedestal and sat down on it, her eyes trained on Jack.

"So," she began as Will disappeared into the hatch that led below decks. "What exactly is it about Will's father that interests you so much?"

Jack remained silent for a few moments, as if carefully considering his answer, which led Isabella to conclude that she wouldn't like it. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"Well, there's only one way to break the curse–"

"It's to return the coins to Isla de Muerta and shed the blood of those who took them. Yes, I remember. And?"

"And, that's where Bootstrap Bill comes in." Jack leaned on the wheel. "See, he was part of me crew when I went lookin' for the treasure. He was also the only one who didn't take part in the mutiny."

"Ah."

"Last I heard, Barbossa had tied him to a cannon and thrown him overboard. Never knew why. But," he lifted a finger, a shrewd smile on his face, "I do know Barbossa did it before he learned that he needed Bootstrap's blood to lift the curse."

That was when it dawned on Isabella. Only her conviction that her friend wouldn't do such a thing when he knew full well how wrong she would consider it inclined her to tamp down a surge of disbelieving anger. She slipped off the wooden case and crossed her arms, fixing a penetrating gaze on Jack, who returned it steadily.

"Are you thinking of trading Will for the Pearl?" she asked calmly but in a tone that made it clear he'd better think twice before speaking.

Jack shrugged.

"I would if you and your bloody conscience weren't here."

Isabella tightened her lips but refrained from commenting. She had long since understood that Jack wasn't and never would be much of an altruist. She accepted it readily and didn't judge him for it—God knew she was no saint herself. She didn't usually meddle with his schemes unless they involved both of them, judging that she wasn't responsible for him and his decisions. She had let him toy with Scarlett's and Giselle's feelings, she had helped him steal Anamaria's boat, but this was different. She simply couldn't let him hand over an innocent man to those butchers.

"But since we're here..?" the Brine-Tongue prodded, her eyebrows raised.

"Well, I had to come up with something else. Needs perfecting, though."

"I'm listening."

Over the next twenty minutes, they devised a plan to not only rescue Elizabeth, but also break the curse without sacrificing Will and reclaim the Black Pearl. It would, naturally, require a lot of skill but they had plenty of that. A fair amount of luck, too. In fact, its success relied on a few too many 'ifs' and 'hopefullys' for Isabella's liking, mainly because they had no idea how Barbossa would react or even where he was going—they were hoping his destination was Isla de Muerta, which Jack had explored sometime after Barbossa's mutiny and before he'd met Isabella. Nevertheless, they couldn't think of a better plan for the moment. They would adapt accordingly once they were there. They agreed not to share anything with Will yet. The young man didn't trust them much as it was, if at all; no need to make it worse by telling him that they intended to use him for their own purpose...

"If we get the Pearl, will you keep this one?" Jack asked after a few moments of silence. "Might be useful if you decide to go after your brother."

"I'm not sure," Isabella said thoughtfully, fiddling with her button pendant. "The few times I entertained the possibility, I considered capturing one of the ships that sail under his colours first... A frigate, preferably. And then... I don't know. I didn't plan any further."

She could never muster the courage to. When she opened that door, dark thoughts poured in. Thoughts about her responsibilities that tightened her guts with guilt. Thoughts about killing her brother that closed up her throat and set her heart a-pounding with dread. She heard his laughter as they swung in the rigging as children. She felt the cold steel of his dagger inside her. And saw his russet eyes as hard and dead as stone. Better to keep the door closed, then. Safer. Oh, she knew that she would have to face the music one day or another. Just... later. Yes, later.

"Hm. Well, that frigate wouldn't stand a chance against you, me, and the Pearl."

Isabella's smile lit up her eyes as warmth bloomed in her chest and spread through her limbs. No, Jack wasn't an altruistic man, but he made an exception for her.

"No", she said, "it really wouldn't."

After that, the conversation revolved around more innocuous topics. They filled each other in on what had happened to them after they had split up—Jack tried to minimize how close Will had come to defeat him but Isabella wasn't fooled. They discussed how to find a crew—Jack had an idea about that—and the best ways to avoid not only Scarlett and Giselle, but also Anamaria. That was another thing Isabella was grateful for. Jack never pushed her to do her duty and deal with her brother.

"First, it's not my place," he'd said when she had asked him why he didn't. "Secondly, I know you'll do it when you're ready. Might be next week, in two months, a year, or maybe five, but you'll do it."

She also liked that, the rare times when Valerio's name came up in the conversation, he didn't bother walking on eggshells as if he was worried that she'd suddenly go to pieces. She wasn't that fragile. Well, not anymore. There had been a time when she couldn't hear her brother's name without feeling the urge to cover her ears and curl up in a corner. When the only thing keeping her from drinking herself into oblivion was the life debt she owed Jack, which she couldn't repay if she was either blind drunk or sleeping off the booze. But that was over now. She no longer needed every ounce of her will to leave her bed. The world no longer seemed flat and lusterless. She no longer put off going to sleep for a long as she could because then it would be the next day already, and she'd be that much closer to the moment when she would have to face her brother.

The two pirates let Will sleep for three hours. Isabella claimed the next three "because I spent the night fighting unkillable pirates while you just sat in a cell." She found Will fast asleep in the narrow bunk in one of the two little officers' cabins and shook him awake gently.

"It's my turn to sleep," she informed him with a half-smile once his eyes had focused on her.

"Right," the young man said, his voice rough with sleep, as he sat up.

Isabella left the room, deciding to settle in the captain's cabin. She stripped down to her shirt and her black breeches and collapsed on the bed with a groan of relief. Between crossing swords with undead pirates, getting hit on the head by half a house, breaking Jack out of prison, walking underwater, climbing up the massive stern of a man-of-war, and stealing a ship right in front of Commodore Norrington, she felt as dead on her feet as Barbossa's crew.

"That's going to hurt tomorrow," she mumbled into her pillow.

And then she fell asleep. When Jack woke her up, it felt as though it had only been a few seconds since she had closed her eyes. Still, the nap had done her some good, enough for her to resist the siren call of the soft pillow and the comfortable mattress and leave the bed to Jack. She quickly got dressed and went up to the deck, where she found Will at the helm. He stepped aside to let her take the wheel and, as her hands touched the wood and her eyes flew to the horizon, she realized that something about herself had changed. That she felt... She furrowed her brow, carefully listening to the new, tentative cadence of her psyche.

Purposeful.

That was it. For the first time in five years, she had a truly important purpose. Rescuing a young woman, breaking a curse, taking back Jack's ship—it mattered, more than anything she'd done since Valerio had almost killed her. And somehow, that realization felt like a turning point, or like setting foot on the first stone of a new path. The Brine-Tongue took in a deep breath of sea-tanged air and released it slowly. Maybe Jack and Will wouldn't be the only ones to get something out of this adventure of theirs.

"You're not like him... Jack, I mean," Will said suddenly, drawing her out of her musing.

She turned her attention to the young man, who was watching her speculatively.

"Not that I disagree with you, but what makes you say that?"

Will leaned against the rail that ran between the two short staircases leading down to the main deck, to the right of the ship's bell, and folded his arms loosely.

"Back in Fort Charles, you agreed to help me before you knew who I was. Or rather, who my father was."

"Hm. You might call it feminine sympathy. As a woman, I have a more... accurate– intimate understanding of the damage men can inflict on women. Which, believe me, I've seen firsthand. No woman deserves that fate."

Will nodded, his face darkened by the thought of the pirates hurting Elizabeth.

"Well, thank you," he said.

Isabella gave him a lopsided smile.

"Prego—you're welcome." A beat of silence. "Tell me, you're a blacksmith, yes?"

"Technically, I'm still an apprentice but," he rolled his eyes, "I'm the one who does all the work."

Isabella raised her eyebrows inquisitively.

"Oh?"

"Mr. Brown has so much alcohol in his body that he'd go up in flames he got too close to the fire," Will explained with a sarcastic smile. "Besides, it's a little hard to forge anything when you can't see straight."

"I see," the pirate laughed. "And is it Mr. Brown who knocked Jack out?"

"It is. Got all the credit for the capture, too. But, since he probably saved my life, I'm not complaining."

"Oh, Jack wouldn't have killed you. He would have shot you in the shoulder or the leg."

"And that makes him a good man?" Will derided.

"That makes him someone who's not a brute like Barbossa's men," Isabella retorted sharply. "Besides, it might surprise you to learn that being a pirate and being a good person aren't mutually exclusive."

Will didn't look convinced but the Brine-Tongue chose not to insist. That was something he would have to see for himself.

"Anyway," she went on, "I was curious about one thing. How does a blacksmith know the governor's daughter?"

This time, Will's smile was warm and tinged with wistfulness. He told Isabella how his search for his father had led him to a British merchant ship bound for the Caribbean, a ship that had been attacked by pirates during the journey. How he, the only survivor, had been rescued by the crew of the Dauntless. He talked about the little girl in a rich gown he'd woken up to and her visits as he recovered. He'd thought she would quickly lose interest in him, that wealthy little girl, but she hadn't—she'd kept coming and they had talked and, when the governor had allowed it, played together. By the time they had landed in Port Royal, they had become friends. Governor Swann had been kind enough to arrange his apprenticeship with the local blacksmith while he and his daughter had taken up residence in a grand mansion, and Will had thought that would never see each other again. She had proven him wrong once more, going to see him whenever she could, sometimes even behind her father's back. It had made him bolder and he had dared to sneak regularly to the servants' entrance. The years had passed in that fashion, their friendship growing...

Will broke off, apparently reluctant to say any more, but Isabella could easily guess what he felt uncomfortable telling her.

"You fell in love with her," she said softly.

The young man gave her a wary glance, as if he was afraid she'd tease him as Jack had.

"Yes," he admitted. "But I'm not naïve enough to think I'll ever marry her. I'm no Commodore Norrington."

"It's funny, I'm not sure what to tell you," Isabella sighed with a wry smile. "On one hand, I've seen enough of the world to know that it's only in tales that common men marry ladies and princesses."

"Tell me something I don't know," Will muttered.

"On the other hand," the pirate went on as if she hadn't been interrupted, "if my travels have taught me anything, it's that people have a way of surprising you. Sometimes... they accomplish things that are supposed to be impossible. Like casting a bridge over the chasm that separates aristocracy from commoners. Of course, those moments are as rare as queen conch pearls."

A mirthless smile stretched Will's lips.

"So what you're telling me is that I do have a chance of marrying Elizabeth... but an insignificant one."

"That's about it."

Will let out a sarcastic snort.

"You have a strange way of cheering people up."

"I'm not one for comforting lies."

The young man hummed in reply but didn't try to continue the conversation. Then again, that topic must be quite painful to him, Isabella mused. She had never been in love herself. Not really, anyway. She had had a couple of passing infatuations during her adolescent years, the longest one with a roguishly handsome Frenchman serving as first mate aboard the Fancy, Capitaine Chevalle's ship, when she was fifteen. Nothing more, though. She had no idea what it felt like to love someone without hope, and no interest in finding out.

"This morning, you called yourself a captain... Why don't you have your own ship?" Will inquired after a few minutes of silence.

Isabella's hand tightened around the wheel's handles until her knuckles turned white while something in her stomach clenched painfully. Phantom fingers dug cruelly into her jaw, forbidding her to turn her head away– "Watch," a cold voice whispered next to her ear– and a ball of fire tore her brig apart. The Brine-Tongue shook off the memories and loosened her grip on the wheel, forcing herself to focus on the young man who was watching her expectantly.

"I had one, once, but she was destroyed," she said , her voice taut. "She was a brig, like this one, and she was called the Trickster's Fate. She was a gift from my parents—they'd captured her from the French Navy. I travelled all around the world with her."

As the northwestern coast of Hispaniola came into view far off the starboard side and the sun descended towards the horizon behind them, Isabella told Will about her travels. She described the canals and the palazzi of Venice, the medina of Salé in Morocco, and the splendors of Constantinople, the Giant's Causeway in Ireland and the valley of the Nile. She spoke of the whirling dervishes she'd seen in Smyrna and the skill of Japanese tattoo artists, of the taste of baklava and Breton buckwheat pancakes and Scotch whisky. She talked until the last fires of the setting sun died down and the lights of Tortuga Port gleamed amidst the dark mass of the island.

"Will you please go and get Jack?" she bade Will. "Oh, and Will?" she added just as the young man was about to go down the stairs. "When we get to Tortuga, don't mention my family name to anyone."

"Why not?" Will questioned, frowning in perplexity.

"Because there are some people who believe me dead and it's best they don't know any better."

The fewer pirates knew that Valerio Sforza's sister was, in fact, still alive, the better—that way, the news was much less likely to reach her brother's ears.

"I see. All right, I won't tell."

"Thank you."

The young man gave her a 'no problem' nod and went off. Isabella puffed out her cheeks and exhaled a sharp breath as she stared at the approaching harbour with open distaste, mentally bracing herself for the hole in the world, full of filth and noise and scum, that was Tortuga.

Sooo... How was it? I'd like to hear your opinions.

Of course, Isabella's presence (and morals) will change quite a few things once they get on the Isla de Muerta. I had to come up with a whole new plan of action to 1) rescue Elizabeth, 2) recover the Pearl, and 3) not just hand Will over to Barbossa to be sacrificed. They won't get there until Chapter 8, though. First, there's Tortuga and a nice surprise for Isabella.

You may be starting to wonder what's up with that button Isabella wears as a pendant. Perhaps some of you have already guessed what it is, if not where it comes from. I'm afraid you'll have to wait a few chapters to find out.

Drop a review! It always cheers me up :)

Translation:
- prego = you're welcome
- palazzi = palaces (singular: palazzo)