When Talia had practically leaped aboard her ship, she immediately commanded everyone to ready the Death Lily to set sail. Jack pretty much took the hint from her vicious screaming and told his crew to do the same. As soon as the ship was prepared to sail, Talia turned the ship to the horizon and hoped that God sent a fast wind--after all, it wouldn't be long before Norrington was conscious. Once everything was hunky-dory and Port Royal was far to their rudder (both the Death Lily and the Pearl), the captain went to interrogate/coo over her twin brother.

Of course, the end result of the interrogation/cooing was a very angry-at-Jack Talia and a very sheepish Adrian…which was bad, since if Talia was mad about anything, she generally took it out on her crew. So, of course, Adrian then took the brunt of a mess of joking reprimands from Asher, Ryan, Chess, and Sarah (the invisibles were too afraid to talk anymore and besides, at least Adrian could tell when his friends were joking, whereas the invisibles…well, you could never really tell).

It seemed to be a strange phenomenon (to Sarah and Jack, that is) that, for the next four weeks at sea, the sky was a brilliant shimmering sheet of mirrored ocean--nary a cloud was seen, which was so very strange and peculiar. Every day Sarah would make a new comment about it to Jack, who was frequenting the Death Lily in more dramatic spurts since the beginning of the second week (it took a while for Talia to cool off). Neither one of the them could understand it, but both were thankful for what the clear skies meant--nothing bad!

The end of the fourth week/beginning of the fifth week, both ships took a pit stop and another random island; resting, restocking supplies, and generally searching for loot, of which they found none. They stayed at this island (no one knew the name, really) for half a week, then began their journey to nowhere in particular again. About a week after that, they came upon another island and stopped to rest and have some time to themselves (they had learned from their last experience not to stay on the same ship with the same people for more than six weeks). While at this new island, Talia and Sarah had two interesting experiences (and though you may think you know what happened, a.k.a., Talia sees Drew, Sarah talks with Jack, but you're wrong). First, Sarah came across Drew while she was on a search for plunder (very unfruitful, by the way). Basically, it meant it was a chance for Sarah to be harshly sarcastic to her traitorous friend from a decade ago.

He approached her on the street that led through the middle of the town (considered "main street"). "Oh, if it isn't my old pal? Looking for a street corner to sulk on?"

"And if it isn't my old pal? Looking for your rock to crawl back underneath?" Sarah sneered, rolling her eyes and turning to face the gentleman behind her.

"Such harsh words from such a pretty mouth. Prey tell, why are you so hateful, dear one?" He had a benign smirk across his face, which bothered her because she could see right through it to his cruel, empty soul.

"I'm no dearer to you than I am to Commodore Norrington--no dearer to you than…my own parents, who left me in their dust." She shuddered with visible disdain.

"No dearer than the boy who taught you was to your parents, perhaps?"

Sarah stared at him, frowning. She had never told him about the boy--how did he know? She could not, however, think of anything to say, so she stood, stock-still, with her blue eyes fixed up the mysterious man in front of her.

"Cat got your tongue, Pandora?" She was shaken out of her trance.

"More like rat. What about you? Parrot got your brains?" She swiveled slightly on her heels and leaned forward. "I daresay your intelligence has been waning, as of late. Probably in favor of your fashion sense…after all," She took a step closer to him and touched the neatly-tied black ribbon in his sandy-colored hair. "who needs brains when you've got the most exquisite ribbon in your immaculately shiny hair?"

She finally saw a reaction. Drew's false mask briefly cracked and he scowled at her with a look of extreme dislike--which was perfectly fine with her. Reverting back to his calm expression, Sarah's double-crossing former friend crossed his arms and smiled. "Lashing out again?" He clicked his tongue. "Nasty habit. It's oh so much better to stay cool and under control."

"I'll give you under control--how about I scalp you, then you show me under control, eh?"

"Ah yes, scalp me. I'll break your arm before you can reach me."

Sarah snorted. "You! You'll break my arm! You couldn't break a rotting twig with your spindly fingers if your very living breath depended on it."

"Laugh all you want, just don't push me."

"Where would you get that idea? I'm just laughing. Pushing requires physical activity, of which I don't feel like participating in. Right now, I'd just prefer to laugh at you."

Drew sighed. "You know what I meant."

"Do I? Amazing! He can read minds, too! See the incredible gypsy, Drew! He'll tell your fortune then struggle to pick up a glove! It's brilliant! I'd make a lot of money off of that." She enjoyed watching her acquaintance's expression of frustration evolve. She was on such a roll, it was ridiculous.

He held up his hands. "Fine. Ridicule me, poke fun. It'll all come back to you someday." He smiled, and to a passerby, it probably would have looked friendly, but to someone as well versed in Drew's emotions as Sarah, it was sinister. He was hiding something behind that cheery smile.

For a few moments of silence, the two surveyed each other, then Sarah shifted her jaw and sighed. "You know what? I think I'll be on my way now." With a thoughtful glance, she turned and began to walk on her way, then she turned her head slightly. "I hope not to see you any time soon."

"La, but you have no idea how much I want to see you."

That just chilled her. The way he said it was so frighteningly cold that she actually physically shivered. Was he like this with Talia, or was he disturbingly bumbling and stupid in a lovey-dovey sort of way? At the present, the only thing she wanted was to get away from him, to get far, far away from him. She turned one last time to look at him; he was still standing there, fake smile plastered on his gaunt face. The sun may have been shining brightly, the weather warm and balmy, but when Sarah exhaled just then, she could almost see her breath.

She wasn't sure what it was, but Drew was so different now. It scared her a little--had she not hated him so much at that moment, she would have been concerned, but seeing as she couldn't stand the man, it just scared her. Though scared was an understatement of significant proportions.

He was up to something.

- - - - -

Second, Talia talked to Jack (what a surprise, eh?). She approached him on the Pearl and decided to have a nice, long conversation with him about his least favorite subject.

"Jack." Jack spun around to face Talia, who had pretty much snuck up behind him.

"Oh, Talia. It's only yo--well…it's you. Okay." He stretched his arms above his head lazily (after he had recovered from the shock of Talia scaring him, that is) and gazed at Talia with his soft and sleep-drugged brown eyes. He hadn't gotten any sleep the night before.

Then again, what Talia was about to talk about would most definitely wake him up. "Jack. I know why you want her."

"Mother o--not this again!" He dropped his hands, still above his head (though, now they were at his sides), and turned away. "Do we have to talk about this?"

"Yes."

"Fine, fine. Then let's go someplace else." He looked around for a few seconds, then headed downstairs, Talia trailing behind with a smug look on her face.

Sitting in Jack's room (which was an absolute pig-sty, really), Talia brushed a few strands of red hair away from her face and sat staring primly at Jack, who was sprawled on his bed. "So. You love her."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"First off, no, I don't, and second, no, we're not starting this again. That was really, really, really annoying." Talia nodded. Jack, slightly aggravated from lack of sleep and the subject at hand, pushed a beaded lock of hair out of his face, the corners of his mouth extending, making him look very…oh, very cranky, I suppose.

"I'd only like to point out how very obvious it is that you love her."

"I-it's not obvious!"

Talia was in one of her rare good moods (sort of) and her face was animated with a sly smile that cast a curious flame in her eyes. "Oh! And you just happened to fall onto her face that one day when I walked in on you two?"

A stunned silence. Jack couldn't reply because he was too shocked to utter a word. However, let it be known that, had his mouth come unglued and his voice box repaired, he would have been able to make a spectacular lie.

"Ahh." Talia crossed her arms, clearly pleased with his non-existed reply. "I see you have no argument--I told you!"

"…That's no proof at all," He muttered. "It's not proof--for instance, had it been you in the room, the same thing would have happened--minus the tranquility and you walking in," He was struggling vainly to make up a lie. Technically, it was half true (though it was unlikely that he would have kissed Talia to make her shut up, for fear of being disfigured), but there was no way he'd let her know that he loved Sarah. "and you know Sarah didn't start it--she's too angry with me the majority of the time."

"You're a terribly liar."

"What??"

"Forget it. I'll find more proof and come to you again. But remember--" She stood and began to walk away, but turned her head to glance back at him. "--I know it and there is nothing you can do about it."

"Okay." He stood and waved at her with a forced grin. "Just don't kill me for breathing," He added between clenched teeth. Sighing as soon as she was gone, he sat back down, grimacing.

Hopefully she won't make this to Sarah--then again, she'd probably make a better lie about it.

- - - - -

Soon after these things happened, the ships set sail again, another two weeks passing with eerie speed, and all was well and good (if you disregard the fact that Talia was beginning to resemble a slave driver to the invisibles, Jack was visiting the Death Lily more and more which made the Irish captain more rabid than usual, and Ryan attempted to start another car tournament, which, obviously, ended in disaster). The is, until the third week.

Sarah, as per usual, was standing at the side of the ship early that morning, talking to Adrian and waiting for Jack to miraculously appear on the ship. Adrian was in the middle of a sentence when, without warning, he burst into a fit of coughing. Despite the obvious strangeness of it all, he recovered quickly and was greeted with Sarah's cheery and confused reply.

"Y'okay?"

"Yeah, I think."

She laughed, as if trying to relieve the tenseness around the odd development. "Coughing up a hairball?" He laughed and nodded, though he still didn't understand what had made him begin to cough like that. It wasn't long after that that Jack appeared and listened to the two people talk about what had happened to Adrian. As if some sort of omen, he repeated the act spontaneously and found himself staring confusedly at Sarah and Jack.

"I'm assuming that you meant to do that." Jack said, triggering a slow shake of Adrian's head. It didn't seem right, it didn't seem natural, that Adrian would, out of nowhere, begin to hack as if he were choking on something, and not one of them, even the victim himself, understood what it mean, but it most assuredly was not a good thing.

Not wanting to consider the possibilities of what it could mean, they all tried to forget it, hoping it was just some quirky thing that happened once and only once. However, that wasn't the case. A few days later, the coughing (which had been occurring on and off throughout the week) took a turn for the worse--and others began to cough, as well. In fact, the only people who weren't afflicted were Jack, Talia, Sarah, Asher, Ryan, and Chess (ironically enough).

It actually didn't seem to bad of a thing (just irritating coughing that hardly affected work, aside from the rare times when someone would cough so hard that they fell over--it was pretty harsh for Adrian, though)--until other things started. Adrian first, then several other people, began to be lose their appetite and become lethargic; they shuffled around weakly and their processes slowed. And if anyone had bothered to look in on the affected while they slept, they would have known of the cold sweat that most broke out in as they lay in bed.

For once, Talia wasn't drilling the crew as usual, due to the condition of the majority's health, and was mostly attending to Adrian while the other non-sick people (a.k.a. Sarah, Jack, Chess, Ryan, and Asher, respectively) tended to the invisibles. Half a week after Talia began taking care of her brother, another ominous discovery was made.

Adrian was coughing up blood--and soon after it was discovered and reported to the caretakers (I won't list them again), the caretakers, themselves, began to find invisibles coughing up blood, as well.

Finally, if anyone had had any doubt there was some sort of sickness among the Death Lily crew (…who would doubt something as obvious as that??), that doubt was quickly tossed aside as people began to be detected with fevers.

"What d'you think it is?" Asher asked the caretakers (minus one Talia), kicking the deck beneath his feet with dismal effort.

"…Could be Consumption," Ryan offered, sitting down on a crate and shuffling his cards offhandedly. "My dad once knew a friend whose cousin's mother's nanny had Consumption. 'E said it was terrible."

"He didn't mention any symptoms, did he?" Sarah wasn't looking at anyone, she was watching the sky, which had been a constant heather gray for the past eleven or so days. It wasn't looking very bright, that was for sure. Ryan rattled off a list of symptoms that he thought his father had mentioned, and every single one he named had been spotted on the Death Lily. When questioned of his father's friend's cousin's mother's nanny death, he said he didn't know because his father had fallen asleep before he could finish his story.

"Well," Jack pulled to his feet from his cross-legged position on the floor. "I'm going to go check on Adrian and Talia."

"I'll come, too." Sarah followed Jack down to Talia's quarters, where Adrian was lying on Talia's bed, his sister never far from his side.

It was horrifying to the two as they watched, unseen from the doorway, Talia begin to cough. They glanced at each other with weary looks and hoped for the best--it was all they could do.

It was really beginning to look bleak as many of the invisibles were coughing and hacking at a feverish (no pun intended) pitch, but on the slightly brighter side, Adrian was beginning to improve, and Talia hadn't even started coughing up blood--and it was already a week after she had contracted the disease! The caretakers were starting to feel the stress relieving, which was a blessed feeling. One of the invisibles had already recovered and had mostly regained his appetite.

And then the final blow struck.

Sarah was having a somewhat more upbeat conversation with the caretakers and then someone mentioned checking on Talia and Adrian (Talia was in the same room as Adrian now). Sarah offered to go, and so she meandered down the steps and into Talia's room where there was a…well, a something in the air that she couldn't quite place. But nothing really seemed out of the ordinary. She checked on Talia, who was sleeping (she may have been doing okay, but she was still incredibly lethargic), then she turned to face Adrian.

There was really something different about him, now that she looked at him straight on, but she couldn't entirely grasp what it was. She stepped closer and frowned, trying to figure out what was different about him, why something struck her as odd--then it hit her.

The room was silent as a crypt. She suddenly felt the walls press in. Adrian's face looked peaceful enough, but that was just it; he wasn't coughing. His usually pale face was an ashen color. A cold, dry gasp escaped Sarah. He was dead.

She looked back at Talia, sleeping in gentle tranquility. Could she bear to tell the sister of her brother's fate? It was difficult to say. Stomach sinking to the floor, Sarah couldn't find the will to walk out the door. He mind had gone pretty blank and she couldn't think.

"Sarah, what are you doing?" Jack was likely wondering why she hadn't returned yet, considering it didn't take that long to check on someone. "What are you just standing there for?" Silence. "What--did something happen? You're not sick, are you?" Silence again. "…Sarah?" She slowly turned to him.

"Jack…Adrian…he's…" Jack looked really confused--and rightfully so. Sluggishly turning her gaze and body away from Adrian, she stared at the floor, glanced at Talia, then Adrian, then looked at Jack. "Adrian's dead." Jack caught on. His eyes widened and he looked to the peaceful Adrian.

"You're joking."

"No."

"Bloody hell…"

The tomb-like presence returned and it was near unbearable to be in the room any longer. Talia still slept on and, not wanting to wake her for something as terribly sad as what had taken place, they two of them left the room to return at a later time. They told the caretakers--it wasn't taken well.

When Talia was awake the next day, Sarah and Jack (it only seemed right, since they had found her brother first) came to herald the bad news.

"Talia…how are you feeling?" Was the very lame start of the conversation from Sarah's end.

"I'm feeling better. How's Adrian?" Jack and Sarah just happened to be blocking her view of where Adrian lay. Sarah glanced hesitantly at Jack and took a deep breath. This was a lot more difficult than she had imagined--and she had imagined it quite difficult.

"Adrian is…uh…he's…Adrian is…dead, Talia. I'm sorry." She cringed at her own words. At least it was over with. She glanced at Jack again, who was straining not to look really weird. As his teeth were half-bared and his face was also contorted n a cringe. Talia, on the other hand, looked at first like she didn't comprehend. Her face was a little concerned and her mouth was slightly ajar.

Then it registered and her expression changed greatly. Her mouth clamped shut and her eyes widened. She seemed to turn a shad paler as she sunk into the pillow beneath her head. For three minutes Sarah and Jack watched their grief-stricken friend stare at the ceiling and tried to contact her, to no avail. There was nothing they could do now. They left her in silence.

If you could have heard Talia's thoughts, it probably would have scared you. She wanted to blame someone, blame someone for this dem sickness, for the death of her dear brother. She could have blamed Jack, but she was tired of blaming Jack, so she didn't; she could have blamed Adrian for following Jack, but she loved her brother far too much, so she didn't; she could have blamed the sick prisoner in the cell with Adrian, but she didn't; she could have blamed Norrington for arresting them both and putting her brother in the cell with the sick prisoner, but she didn't; she could have blamed the Governor of Port Royal for giving Norrington the authority to arrest her brother and Jack, but she didn't; she could have blamed Will and Elizabeth for being friends with Jack and therefore being the cause of the trip to Port Royal in the first place, but she didn't; she could have, if she had known about the adventures of Jack, Will, Elizabeth, Barbossa, and the Black Pearl, blamed her own uncle (Barbossa, ironically) for kidnapping Elizabeth and causing Will to talk to Jack which eventually let to them traveling together and becoming friends, which was the reason they came to Port Royal, but she didn't know about that, so she didn't; she could have blamed Sarah for being friends with Jack and causing Talia to come with her to meet him at that tavern, which inevitably led to Talia negotiating with Jack to save her brother in the first place, but she didn't; she even could have blamed herself for listening to Jack that night in the tavern, but she didn't. She finally decided on God, who created the disease, who created her parents who bore her and her twin, and who planned fate to lead to this. She was so engulfed in shock that all she could do was stare at the ceiling, concerning all well enough to notice.

It took only one more week for Talia to recover from the sickness, and by then most of the invisibles (who lived) were feeling well. She took out all of her grief on the crew, screaming with more fury than ever, and the only people she would talk to and not scream at were Asher and Ryan (because they had known Adrian almost as well as her and she could reminisce with them), sometimes Sarah (she was her friend, and the only woman on board, save herself), and even less times…hardly ever…Jack (…every once in a great while).

The week Talia recovered, it rained.