Okay! Chapter 15! I'm only writing this at the beginning so everyone knows, at the end, that is really true about Jack's arm. If you have the two-disc version of Pirates of the Caribbean, and have watched the deleted scene entitled No Truth At All (or something like that), you'll know that it's true. It's just a neat little thing that I felt like putting in. So don't tell me that I made it up--I didn't!

Thank you for reading!

- - - * - - -

Sarah and Jack, noticing the chaos both from the ship and from the tavern, had to come and claim Talia, calming her down (hardly) and explaining her to the guards with a most clever (and sort of half-baked) lie about her being sick of mind and upset about seeing the dead body (which had surprised and appalled the two newcomers, seeing as it was Asher, and they liked Asher). After barely escaping the guards, they hurried Talia off to her ship and, after locking her in her room (and removing all of the sharp things in it) so that she didn't get out and begin slaughtering random people in her temporary madness, reported the first mate's fate to the rest of the crew.

Every hour, one of the crew (well…either Ryan, Chess, Sarah, or Jack, that is) would go and check on Talia, listening through the door for signs of sedation. By the seventh hour (Ryan was checking), she had fallen asleep. But they didn't unlock her door (Talia was clever, she could be faking it). The following morning, they dared to open her door, but she merely stared at them blankly from her bed, her black eyes half visible beneath her slightly darker-shaded eye-lids.

The whole day was slow. Talia almost seemed to be lapsing back into her sickness-driven lethargy from the Consumption spread. When approached about it, she bared gave an answer. No on could blame her, though; after all, even the crew was relatively depressed at the loss of two crew members (especially those who had known Asher and Adrian well--you know who I mean).

After a while, Sarah, Jack, Chess, and Ryan plotted to cheer up Talia, all of them upset at seeing their captain in such a manner, but their numerous attempts were swiftly obstructed.

First, they came and proposed a card match, which triggered the slow blinking of Talia's eyes. She then grimaced and crossed her arms. "No thanks." Of course, her manners and vague politeness in her reply were more surprising than her actual reaction, but…well, they left, disappointed, to reform and think of a new idea.

Next, they came and asked if she wanted to practice fighting, or throwing knives or something, which she declined to. "No." She tapped her long fingernails on the side of the ship, staring at the sky, which was, by the way, a more grayish-blue that seemed to roll about and change in a lazy manner. "Maybe later," She added. The group glanced at each other with doubtful expressions, then turned to once again think up a new plan.

Finally, they approached and lied to her, claiming that some random invisible had snuck into her room. This likely would have worked, had she not discovered their lie, remember that she had "locked the door immeasurably" and therefore not a single person could enter, save for herself.

Curses. Foiled again.

They slunk off once more and struggled to devise another (not so) brilliant scheme to bring the captain back to her sunny, or rather, burning, fiery disposition that everyone was oh so familiar with. Unfortunately.

It didn't go well. Not one of the four could think of something that would even budge Talia. Eventually, they kicked Justin into shouting, "Land ho!," but that there was no response from Talia except a small glance and a roll of her eyes. At least it was a hint at her sarcastic personality coming back. Thank goodness.

It was near sundown when Sarah finally got sick of thinking up something that would work. She grabbed Jack (who was actively protesting in a noisy manner) by the arm and dragged him up to Talia, who was now tapping her fingernails on the wood in an ear-pleasing rhythm. Sarah tapped her on the shoulder and, to her surprise, got her to turn all the way around and look at her. Her expression was a mingled look of annoyance and mild depression (more catatonic, really)--although, there was a very faint hint of fury in her eyes, likely there from being interrupted while tapping.

"Talia, want to plunder with up--"

"Actually, I think I'll opt out--" Jack tried to object, scared of Talia, no matter how blank she was.

"--plunder with us?"

Talia masher her mouth around, seeming to consider it, then shrugged. "No." She gestured to her make-shift bag, which was still sitting on deck, daring someone to look through it. Maybe someone should look through it--it might get Talia to hurt someone. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Sarah thought absentmindedly. "I've already got what I wanted." She looked off somewhere in the distance.

"For the love of scary cannibalistic natives…Talia, why're you being this way?" Although this question was not a ploy to get Talia to do something skeptical, she did anyway and Sarah was sort of happy about it. She gave the two in front of her one of her famous my-if-it-were-more-more-obvious-a-rat-could-understand-it looks. Clearly she was acting that way because of the loss of Adrian and Asher. Sarah knew that already. "Come on, d'you really think they'd want you to do this? Look, the invisibles are practically running amok!" All three looked--most of the invisibles were standing around, doing nothing. "See? Slackers!"

Talia sort of looked about to react, but she just looked away, still mashing her mouth around thoughtfully. Finally, Jack spoke up, holding up a hesitant index finger.

"Ahh…we don't necessarily need to plunder--we could sit around and drink rum." Both women stared at him--he felt very vulnerable. He never would have guessed that his comment would be the one that caught Talia off guard and allowed Sarah to seize her by the arm and drag her off the ship.

Jack led them to the pub that he had been lounging in before Talia's crowd-and-soldier drawing outburst. At first glance, it looked incredibly seedy. It looked incredibly seedy at second, third, fourth, and fifth glance, too. It was incredibly seedy. He pushed open the door, which creaked horridly, and made a path to an empty table. They sat down and Talia immediately tried to stand up. She didn't have her own rum. They both grabbed her hands and pulled her back into her seat.

"You'll live," Sarah said.

"I refuse to drink any drink at all that isn't me own," She said, slamming her fist on the table. Good. Her temper was coming back.

"No one is going to poison your rum, Miss Frost," Jack put in.

"I'm not drinking anything, mark my words." She finished firmly, crossing her arms and glaring lethally at anything she could see.

- - - - -

Lots and lots of very large amounts of rum later, Talia's inane cackling could be heard half-way across the tavern and it was beginning to get irritating.

The two (Sarah and Jack) had somehow gotten her to drink (though they weren't exactly sure how) and were now suffering the consequences. Jack's chin was cupped in his hand as he watched Talia to make sure she didn't a) get angry and kill someone or b) make one of the wench/waitresses run off crying as Talia's loud and obnoxious giggling drove people insane.

There was suddenly a greatly audible thud. Jack turned to see Sarah with her forehead slammed against the surface of the table. She's down for the count. He thought with an amused smile. Talia, on the other hand, stared blankly at Sarah for a moment, then burst out in another fit of laughter.

After a while, she began to shout random words at the wench/waitresses who passed by, such as "kumquat," "snow," "aardvark," and sometimes "magrydramyle." which everyone suspected to be a made-up word. Which it most definitely was.

At length, Jack was beginning to loose what little sanity he had left, so before it could get any worse, he stood and somehow pulled Talia to her feet. She started laughing again. "Let's get you back to the Death Lily, Miss Frost."

"Miss who?"

"Come on," He started to push her toward the door, since she was just sort of standing there, swaying a bit on her feet, but she swiveled around, and, teetering a little, pushed his hands away.

"Geroff! I can get back on me own, ye yellow kumquat ambledrygad!" He backed off and watched as she stumbled to the door, laughing at random people. Jack sighed. I hope she doesn't get hit by a cart or something. He thought randomly. He turned to face the unconscious Sarah.

"Oh. Right." Looking around for a second, he somewhat reluctantly scooped up Sarah and carried her awkwardly out of the tavern.

Not too far ahead, Talia was meandering in a zigzag pattern in the general direction of the docks. Following close behind, Jack walked, carrying Sarah, all the way back to the Death Lily, supervising Talia, who was still laughing at things. She was starting to laugh at doors.

When on the Death Lily, itself, she tripped twice on the stairs, both times recovering quickly and continuing to amble down the stairs. Finally, she toyed with the maniacal lock on her door until in opened, then walked inside. Jack closed the door with mild difficulty, then made his way to Sarah's room.

He set her down on the bed, mind occupied by what Talia was going to do to him if she ever found out what she had been doing (making a fool of herself) that night, but something sort of made him wake up and jump out of his thoughts.

Sarah was staring at him with bleary eyes and she had one hand resting on his left forearm, which was laced with scars from one of his past excursions. It was usually covered with his sleeve. Clearly, she could feel where the marks were and by the dim, yet mystified, expression on her face, she was obviously confused.

"Jack…what's that" She murmured. She was only half awake, and it was greatly visible. He smiled and moved her hand to rest on her stomach. He watched her eyes blink slowly, then close.

"For another day, love." He headed to the door, looked back once more at the now-unconscious/sleeping-again Sarah, smiled again, then left to return to the Black Pearl. Talia's laughing had given him a headache (so had the rum, sort of).

Before collapsing on his bed, he looked thoughtfully at the scars on his left arm. He tiredly wondered if Sarah would ever bring it up again--maybe. And he'd tell her if she asked. No one had before. Then he wondered why he was thinking about this. Maybe he was just tired. Probably. Then again…

He didn't get much farther than that. He passed out right there and fortunately fell onto his bed with a loud muffled noise.

Tomorrow morning would be…interesting.