Will was sitting with his back against the wall, not being able to comfortably lie down, but his mouth was curved slightly into a smile in his sleep.  Elizabeth murmured something, burrowing her head into his chest and giving a sigh of contentment, a fistful of his shirt in one hand as though she could not bear the thought of letting him go.  His arms were around her, draped loosely, fingers interlaced.

Mina was trying to figure out why this was causing her to feel so . . . empty.  Whittling away at a block of wood in her hands, Jack – the monkey – asleep on a cushion beside her and Jack – the pirate – pretending to sleep but actually scrutinizing her through slitted lids, she sighed.  The emptiness was not in her chest but more in the pit of her stomach, leaving a painful throbbing under her ribcage.  What's wrong with you? she chastised herself.  He's your half brother.  Yet, at the same time, she knew it was not that type of jealousy.

She rolled her head around and lifted her shoulders to try to relive some of the tension she was feeling.  The afternoon had proven trying, especially when Elizabeth proved as quick with the . . . dowel . . . as she was with her tongue.  Granted, Mina had never trained anyone in the blade before, but she was willing to bet that Elizabeth was a faster learner than half.

"'s no way to get rid of tension, love," Jack said lazily.

Automatically her spine straightened as she formalized herself in preparation for dealing with him.  "And you have a better way?"

"Sure I do.  Come here."  He pushed himself up so he was sitting like Will, motioning her to sit in front of him, presenting him with her back.  Slowly – almost hesitantly – she complied, sitting stiffly even as his hands began to work at the muscles in her shoulders.  "Ah, you've got to relax more than that, love," he coaxed.

Almost reluctantly she allowed herself to loosen slightly, not leaning back toward him at all and telling herself that was because he would not be able to keep up the massage if he did.

"Feel better?"

"Somewhat."

Jack halfway smiled and halfway rolled his eyes, working his way down her back and working away at the knots in her back.  "Hard as a rock, love.  Take some weight off that bonny head of yours."

Mina closed her eyes.  "It's not a bonny head and you know I can't."

"Ah, it's bonny if I say it's bonny, and I do.  Savvy?"

I know better than to take your word, Jack.  Instead of voicing her thought, she settled for an indistinct "Mmm" that he took to mean "That feels good."

He was silent a while, noting the way she was letting her guard down.  "Why don't you believe me, love?"

"You've said that before."  It was almost a whisper; she was falling asleep, relaxing back into his arms and not protesting when his arm slid around her waist.

"'s the truth."

"No."  Her head shook, which he felt more than saw as it was tucked under his chin.  "To – to the others."  She yawned, settling even deeper into him.  He was more comfortable than the wood floor, at any rate.

"But I didn't mean it to them."

No answer.

Carefully Jack pulled away far enough to look at her and stroke her cheek.  Giving her a soft kiss he settled back with her in his arms, assured of pleasant dreams.

He awoke sometime later in the middle of the night.  For a moment he wondered why something felt wrong, glancing around in the dark hold lit only by moonlight filtered down from above and through the glass in the door.

Mina was in her usual place, stretched out in front of the doorway fast asleep, head on the pillow and the monkey curled up on her stomach.  Feeling slightly betrayed, Jack rolled over and closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to become regular long before he actually fell asleep.

Mina's eyes opened, glinting in the light, and she sighed.  The monkey gave a little whimper and she soothed him with her hand, keeping another sigh to herself.  While Jack eventually gave out a snore that attested to the fact that he was really asleep, she saw the first golden light of dawn creep down the stairs, wishing the floor were more welcoming than his arms.

* * * * *

Mina fingered the beads around her neck, lips moving with the words running through her head.  Her father thought she was doing something left over from her Abbey days, using a Rosary or some such thing.  Jack, however, was not fooled.  She had once given him a string of beads that she said would protect him.  After a while in the pirating business it seemed fashionable to tie them in his hair.  He had not unwittingly fallen under the curse, nor had he died on that island either time he was stranded.  Maybe it had nothing to do with the beads, but he was not about to make any bets.

Her power was very limited, that he knew, as she was never properly trained by her mother.  Sometimes she could manage dreams across great distances, but only with people she knew well.  That, and Jack had argued that the governor was not about to set a ship out on a certain heading simply because he had a dream that he would find his daughter there.  Heck, Jack himself had supposedly been "sent" a dream not to gamble with the Pearl, but he wrote it off as a remnant from his life long passed and went and did it, anyway.

For a change Jack and Will were chained together at the ankles with a heavy weight between them, the message being clear: should anything stupid conspire, it would only take a well-placed kick to send the weight – and them – to the bottom of Davy Jones' locker.  Still, the captain would be watching from his cabin, ready to emerge with the key and unchain his son so that Jack would be the only one waving good-bye.

"You do realize he's not going to be asleep in the middle of the day," Jack intoned lazily as she turned away from the railing and dropped the beads back down her shirt.

Mina rolled her eyes, surveying the work Elizabeth was doing.  The young woman had again put up a fight when told to scrub the deck, this time on Mina's orders, though nothing more harmful than words passed between them.  "The longer it sits in his mind, the stronger the dream will be and the more likely he will remember it."  She looked slightly ill, pale, and she wiped a drop of sweat from her brow.  "He's too literal, too caught up in materialistic things to believe in spells or curses."

"So was I, love, until you came along."  He raised an eyebrow, stretching and folding his arms behind his head as he leaned back against the rail, lifting the heavy chain around his ankles and crossing them, ignoring the iron cuffs cutting into his ankles.  "Maybe I should say, 'until you saved my life.'  Hmm?"

Mina gave him a look.  "Which time?" she asked sweetly, taking the other brush and bucket and setting to work near him at a brisk pace, giving Elizabeth a look from time to time as though gauging whether or not she were any real competition.

"What was the thing with the beads?" Will asked for lack of anything better to do.

Mina shrugged.  "A long way back on my mother's side, every woman has been involved in magic."

"Witchcraft?"

"If you like.  Dream-casting, spell-weaving, and the like.  I'm not trained up properly; Mother was too sick to teach me and it doesn't work too well inside holy walls."  She rolled her eyes.  "With any luck – all right, with a lot of luck – your father-in-law will have a dream tonight about which heading to sail to catch up with us."

Will shook his head.  "Assuming that's true, he'd never follow it."

"'s what we were afraid of," Jack said rather cheerfully.  "I don't suppose you could get me a hat, love?  The sun's in my eyes."

Reaching out, Mina pulled his bandana down over his face, effectively cutting off his sight.  Jack sat up quickly, shoving it back into place.  "What've I said about –?"

"I didn't do anything," she said, irked.  "It was covered the entire time."

Will blinked.  "What was covered?"

Mina's smile turned raw.  "Did you ever have a mark you decided was too unique to let the whole world see?"

Instinctively Will's left hand went to cover a spot on his right forearm, close to the inside of his wrist, and he noticed she wore a cloth band in the same place.  "What . . . ?"

"Royalty are branded at birth so no mix-ups can occur.  Unfortunately, our father's not royalty, but pirates make the same practice."  Unwinding the cloth, she showed him the mark, same as his: an ornate "T" with a loop on the left end of the crossbar.  "Do you know what that means?"

"Uh . . ."

"It's a warning.  To avoid the noose."  Her smile was wry.  "We had to be branded."

"Why?"

"Because of what I've not been telling you."  She shrugged.  "Anyway, ours were to mark us.  Some go as punishment."

"Like this'un, mate."  Jack pulled up his sleeve to show the branded "P."

"Pirates are worse," Mina continued, dipping the brush in the bucket again.  "They give you marks harder to hide for the smallest things."

Will's eyes slid over to Jack.  "What'd you do?"

He shrugged.  "I got caught."

Mina laughed.  "It's the first time he stole the Pearl."

"I won 'er fair and square," he argued.

"By cheating," Mina corrected.  "So they caught him, decided to prevent him from doing anything like that again, and got run through by his crew when they were done."

"Maybe the scarf only makes me look dashing," Jack said stiffly.  "Maybe I only told you that story to impress you."

She shrugged.  "Well, in that case . . ."

"Stop!"  He caught her hand before it reached the scarf again and threw it aside.  "Women."

Will laughed and she winked impishly at him.  "Thought so."

Elizabeth had looked up at the laugh, so free and familiar, and she caught the wink.  The look on her face was unreadable as she turned back to the deck, scrubbing harder and faster than before, so she missed the way Jack was looking at Mina as she picked up her bucket and went to a new, dry patch of deck and bent her head there.