Disclaimer: Look! Captain Jack is MINE!!! I stole him from PineAppleLint! Bwahahahaha!

AN: Awww, you guys are so nice to me! *Blushes* It makes me so happy to know that people are reading and enjoying this! Thank you from the bottom of my heart! And now, your gift for reviewing!

Chapter Eight

Billy was quickly losing patience with Nora. Today he seemed determined to knock her unconscious at the least. He hit her repeatedly in the ribcage, and she heard a couple of cracks, alerting her to the fact that at least two more of her ribs were now broken. She gasped for air.

"This is yer last chance woman!" yelled Blackheart as he punched her again.

What an appropriate title, Blackheart, Nora thought with the part of her that was not riddled with pain. Finally, they let her fall to the floor. Nora would have sighed in relief if she had been able to get enough breath to do so as she heard them lock the cell behind them. She blacked out as their footsteps drifted up towards the deck.

She dreamt of her father again.

"Nora!" he called to her. "Nora, you lazybones! Come look at how beautiful the sunrise is! Nora!"

"Nora!" It was no longer her father's jovial call, but a rough, terse whisper. Nora opened her eyes slowly, groaning somewhat for the dull ache she felt all over. She looked through the bars of her cell into a pair of familiar dark, kohl-rimmed eyes. However, instead of their usual mischievous glint, the eyes were worried, frightened even.

"Jack?" she whispered hoarsely. "What the Hell? I thought you were…"

Jack smiled a little. "It's not easy to kill Captain Jack Sparrow. But let's save the explanations for later, eh? We have to get you out of here."

"Blackheart has the key; I don't see any other way of getting me out of here. Unless you're a brilliant pickpocket as well, and never told me."

Relief dawned in Jack's eyes. "Well, you must not be quite so close to death as I thought, if you can still make a joke." He hurried away, but was gone only a moment, returning with a bulky plank of wood. He maneuvered it under the bars, and with brute force pulled the door right off its hinges. Nora looked at him in wonder.

"Where did you learn to do that?"

"A blacksmith." He replied with equanimity as he helped Nora to her feet. "We have to hurry now."

It quickly became apparent that she was in no state to hobble much less hurry. Jack quickly gave up trying to support her and instead swept her off her feet- literally- carrying her up to the deck, and helping her into the rowboat that would take them back to the Pearl.

"Why the need for stealth, Captain?" Nora asked, as she knew Jack's style was a little more…rash.

He sighed wearily. "Blackheart severely…disabled us. His guns did some damage to the Pearl, I lost two men in the fight, and it was all we could do to keep him from killin' the lot of us. I thought it wise to be as stealthy as possible."

Nora laughed a little at this. "Jack Sparrow wise? That's one I haven't heard before!" she sobered a little. "As long as he's still alive and I'm still aboard the Pearl, you won't be free of him." She wondered why in God's name Jack was taking all the trouble to rescue her when it would be more to his benefit to just forget the whole business, especially if Blackheart had damaged his beloved ship.

Jack nodded, then looked at her. "I couldn't just leave you there to die, love. What kind of a man d'you think I am?"

By this time they had reached the Pearl, moored in a hidden bay near a port to the south of Nassau. Nora was finding it difficult to breathe once more, having put the pain from her mind in her eagerness for information. Now it returned tenfold, and she had barely reached the deck before she once again lost consciousness.

Nora slipped in and out of fevered dreams for several days, not really knowing where she was. She relived over and over again those few moments as she had watched her father fall to the deck of the ship, a slightly surprised look on his face, as if it wasn't supposed to happen that way. She tried to call out to him, but her tongue had cleaved to the roof of her mouth. And then the image changed, and it wasn't her father who had been run through with Billy's blade, but Jack, and she lost herself to the swirling pit of despair seeing the shocked look in those kohl-rimmed eyes.

She woke to those eyes, the eyes she hadn't been able to blot from her terrible nightmares, and now those eyes were a lifeline between dream and waking, and she knew if she let go their hold now, she would be lost forever. Her misted vision cleared, and she saw not her own cabin aboard the Pearl, but Jack's more luxurious captain's quarters.

The eyes smiled a little, laugh lines crinkling around them. "Thought you might be a bit more comfortable in here. And my arms were about ready to give way; wouldn't have been able to make it all the way to yer cabin without droppin' you."

"How long have I been ill?"

"Three days. I must say, you had us a bit worried there for a while, even the good doctor who looked after you wasn't too hopeful." Nora then noticed the various bandages about her person. "But he left yesterday, saying you would soon come to, so we set sail again."

"I'm sorry to have caused you so much trouble."

"No trouble at all! We weren't going to rescue you just to watch you die! And I still want my share of that treasure!"

"Well then," Nora said and made as if to get up, "I suppose I'd best be-"

Jack pushed her gently back onto the bed. It smelled faintly of him, she thought absently, like seawater and rum, and another scent that was his own, that was uniquely Jack. It was not unpleasant. She was broken out of her reverie when he spoke.

"You're not to leave this bed for a few days yet; doctor's orders."

"And you make quite the nursemaid, I must say." Nora replied with amusement.

Jack's expressive eyes glinted. "Aye, and I'll make certain you get better, even if it suffocates me, sitting in here all day and night."

Nora simply sighed, and laid her head back on the pillow. The effort of speaking had drained what little energy she had.

"Thank you." She whispered.

There was a pause. Then, "You're welcome."