A/N1: For all of ye out thee who don't like slightly longer chapters… Well, this be one, mates! It's worth it, though, I swear! Really, ye shall like (I hope).

A/N2: Thankees for all my reviews, guys! Gives out signed Jack Sparrow posters and mugs and real swords out to all who pressed that little purple button I luvvle y'all to death (not literally ;) Or maybe… :P)

---WARNING--- ---WARNING---

This is where the romance part starts!!! (Well, sorta… You'll see.) If you did not come here to read such, then this chapter might not be your favorite of them all!


A woman, pretty with her caramel locks obscuring her pale face while she sat on the edge of her dusty bed, only achemise covering her. She had a nice voice as she hummed a lullaby softly to herself, sitting with her back straight, legs crossed at the ankles, only her head bowed. Looking at her, one wouldn't find anything spectacular. Perhaps one would be a bit disturbed because of how utterly pale she was, how stark her pallor. And perhaps the harsh frailty of her, the gauntness of her, would make a mark in your mind. But not a lasting one. Only a sort of "How are you today, madam?" would pass your lips, and that only out of a little concern and mainly courtesy.

To Leah, this woman, this 20-something woman, was a horror beyond words. She'd only seen one portrait of her in her entire life, but that one view of it was enough to be able to clearly determine that she was, indeed, the woman from this said portrait, the portrait hanging in her father's study. And because of this, she was able to determine that she had a finely sculpted face, high cheekbones, the rest of her features soft and kind, with gray-blue eyes, much like her own. She also knew that there would be a faint rosiness to her cheeks, a rosiness that would refuse to leave her until death.

And the bedroom which they were now situated in, she recognized it as well. It had been her hiding place for the last few days, hadn't it? It was certainly familiar enough.

"M-mother," Leah managed to stammer out, taking a hesitant step forward. She didn't notice what it was she, herself was holding in her hand, nor what the woman's long hair covered on the front of the white fabric of her bodice. "Mother?"

Smiling, the woman looked up. "Leah," she said joyously, an, waved her hand slightly in greeting, the lullaby she had been singing to herself momentarily halted. It was at that moment that the 17-year old noticed the bit of crimson on the chest area of the bodice, now uncovered.

Unable to help it, she gasped, taking a step back. "Why, my darling, whatever is wrong?" the woman, now identified for certain as Marguerite Swann, asked, frowning. Then, noticing the direction in which her daughter's eyes moved, she pulled her hair away from her front and behind her back, looking down, fully revealing a large stab wound, the blood a clearly visible stain. Now, she understood. "Ah yes. That."

"Mother!"

"Oh, don't fret, my darling," she said, smiling as she stood to her full height of 5'4", barefoot on the cold floor while Leah stood there with her proper gown and shoes, still not noticing the something warm and sticky held in her hand, "I'm sure you didn't mean to murder me."

"Murder-I." Gasping, she finally felt the weight in her right hand, the one hidden in between the skirts of her dress, and lifted it, looking it up and down openmouthed. It was a dagger, one completely coated in crimson, and one that still gleamed in the light. No, she couldn't have. She hadn't… She-

"Ah, but you did, my darling," her mother replied, taking another step forward with one arm outstretched beckoningly. "But, I still can't seem to understand. Why did you kill me, precious? I didn't want to die."

"But, I-" Dropping the blade, horrified, she moved as far back as she could, gasping through newly-come sobs. She couldn't have. Her own mother? What was she saying? What-

Before long, she found herself backed against the door. As her mother took another step forward, she couldn't help but panic and turn, ripping at the doorknob. The door wouldn't budge.

Turning back around, as she had no other choice, she saw her mother bending over lithely and lifting up the knife with two fingers, a calm expression on her face. "Really now, darling. It was a simple question. And you shouldn't leave such things lying around on the floor; it's dangerous."

Swallowing, Leah tried desperately to catch her breath, to force words out. "I- I didn't kill you! It-it wasn't my fault! Please, it wasn't-"

"Oh, I know you didn't mean to, lovely, but it most certainly was your fault," her mother replied, her expression darkening as she advanced. Leah was terrified now. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be! "And now, well, I suppose we'll be together before long."

Leah Swann awoke with a half strangled scream, shooting up with sobs catching in her throat. That same damned nightmare again, that same one! The one that always ended with her mother stabbing her, painfully, in the chest, a wound for a wound. Curling up in a little ball, crying softly to herself, she was dimly aware of Sparrow, who had shot up himself within a millisecond of her cry, pulling his hand slowly away from the hilt of his sword, watching her curiously and with some concern.

"Darling, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she managed to gasp out into her knees, "bloody fine!"

"You don't look it, luv."

"How would you know how I am supposed to look?" she countered. "Bloody pirate, you know nothing!" She didn't really mean this last remark of course, but at the moment, she was too deep in her own sorrow and anger to deal with this. She wasn't even angry over what had transpired bar anymore, too shaken by the familiar nighttime terror.

"Well, for one thing," he replied, not in the least taken aback, "you're sobbing your heart out in a bed with this said pirate. I take it it's not something you'd do everyday."

"Well, you're so very perceptive, Sparrow! You deserve a bloody medal, don't you! You can spot a woman's tears!"

"So what's wrong then?" he asked, getting straight to the point.

"Nothing! Nothing-nothing at all."

"Fine then," he said, and began to lie down again, getting ready to go back to sleep.

"Wait…" Arching an eyebrow, he sat back up, looking over at her.

Slipping her feet off of the side of the bed, ignoring the cold of the floor beneath her bare feet and turned away from him, Leah stared at the wall blankly for a moment, shoulders still trembling, but her tears subsiding. It was unheard of, something that shocked even her… But she actually wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell not just somebody, but him! Why? Why was she even considering it?

Because, another part of her answered, because he's the only one to tell. And that was really the reason, wasn't it? Or at least all that she would admit to, and actually the main reason. There would have been judgment placed upon her if she had told Elizabeth or anyone else she actually knew about her nightmares, about her terrors and sorrows. She would be forced to face them every day and face the fact that they knew. But this Jack Sparrow, absolutely the last person she ever expected to be running off with on an adventure, absolutely the last person she'd ever expected to actually meet in her lifetime, a bloody pirate legend… well, she did not really know him. She didn't see him day in and day out, and doubted she ever would. He couldn't watch her with sympathy, or warily, for the rest of her life, could he? He wasn't biased. She hadn't known him for her entire life. He was completely impartial. And Leah found… Leah found that if she did not tell someone of what was troubling her, she would literally go mad. Or else, she would end up killing herself eventually. One or the other. And she did not want that.

"All right, you want to hear exactly why I hate my life? Where the bloody nightmare I just had stems from? I warn you Sparrow, it is not exactly the shortest of tales."

"Never thought it would be, darling."

"But I still doubt you really thought you would hear my whole bloody life story because of a bloody nightmare I have constantly when you asked me what the matter was."

"You would be right on that count, luv, but it's not as if we haven't got that time. That is unless you plan to talk for the next two or three hours. And who else would you tell?"

Leah laughed bitterly, standing, but then had to take a slow shaky breath in preparation for this. "Well, no one, really. And don't worry; I sincerely doubt it will take that long. My life is not that interesting, really. Simply detestable only by my standards."

"You'd be surprised," he replied.

Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she clasped her hands sternly behind her back and gave him one solitary glance before beginning to pace that side of the room. He was sitting up in the bed, watching her with the oddest of expressions on his face… No boots either, just like her. She could tell from the way his feet appeared under the thin sheets, and assumed he had taken them off before going to bed, while she… she lost her bloody shoes in that underwater walk to the Dauntless. Very annoying walking barefoot through Tortuga.

"Where should I start," she muttered to herself, her breathing slowing down from her earlier weeping. "Ah yes. Well, since it is what originally caused you to ask me what was wrong, that wonderful dream I was just having was of my mother coming back from the dead to kill her murderer, or murderess in my case.

"No, it's not what you think. I didn't actually pick up a dagger and stab her one night, although I might as well have. It was in the act of birth in which I killed my mother."

"Ah."

"Yes," she smiled bitterly. "You see… she'd always been a bit sickly, or so I've heard, and giving birth to me only about two years after my sister… It took its toll. She died a mere few minutes after I was taken from the womb… or so I hear. So I believe.

"All my life, I never understood the side glances I received from my father, or from the others around me. I was young. I would pretend I did not notice them, would pretend that I wasn't at all curious as to why I had no mother while all those around me did. For you see, I apparently look like my mother; my countenance apparently too alike to hers for comfort. I even have her middle name, given to me as a sign of 'respect' for her and her death. Elizabeth would never even tell me what happened to her, either, though she did teach me a song that Mother would sing to her, and that Grandmother, my dead mother's mother, taught her, Elizabeth I mean, because she wanted to know just what her mother had always sung to quiet her. One to do with pirates, actually. Ironic, isn't it?

"Well, one day I overheard two ladies gossiping, and I learned all I needed to know. The nightmares started not soon after that. I was only twelve at the time, and they steadily worsened." Well, the hard part of it was over now. She'd revealed the wonderful basis upon which her entire life had been founded, but she hadn't gotten to the secondary, major tortures of it. Still pacing and refusing to face him, shocked that he wasn't interrupting her, she went on. If she stopped now, she'd never be able to get through it all.

"Before then, though, I wasn't exactly what you would call… the model noblewoman."

"I can vouch for that." Ah yes, there was that interruption.

"Are you going to listen, or not?" she demanded.

Sparrow replied by putting his hands up before him and then putting them together beneath his chin, twice, all somehow without even appearing that humbled. "No, go on, go on."

"Thank you.

"Now, as I was saying, I wasn't the model gentlewoman. I tried, I really did, but the life was pure hell! A woman has absolutely no bloody freedom, and it is apparently preferable that one dies from not being able to breathe than for one to break free of fashion and wear a dress minus a corset."

"I can vouch for that as well, luv. You are aware that I did save your sister from such a fate, eh? I'm not all bad meself, darling."

"I'm sure," Leah sighed, "And do not call me 'luv'!"

"Oh, please, continue," he said, motioning, completely ignoring that last comment. Why couldn't he remain quiet like he had before?!

"Before I begin again, I'm going to ask one thing of you… Please no more interruptions, Sparrow? I'm having a hard enough time of it as it is."

"All right, I swear on my own black little soul that I shall remain silent until you are through with your tale. Agreed?"

"Fine," she said, her tone just a little harsh out of irritation and anxiety over what his reaction to all of this actually was, before shaking her head with a long exhale once again. Why had she agreed to do this? "Well, continuing from where I left off… Not the proper gentlewoman, it was a living hell; you understand that, I'm sure. I've said it often enough. What you don't understand, I'm afraid, is how absolutely horrible this existence was to me piled atop of the burden I apparently already carried from birth. I began to stop pretending after the discovery of this said burden, began to confront my father about Mother. I began to act out as well, to a greater extent than when I was younger, and that didn't exactly go over very well since my father is the governor of Port Royale. I have been sent away from Port Royale more times than I can count, been scolded and punished and yelled at more times than I care to remember. I suppose the worst of it occurred… well about three days before your grand arrival, Sparrow, and that of the Pearl." His expression darkened slightly, but she failed to notice it, having only glanced over at him for the briefest of moments before continuing.

"I had been sent to the country to live with yet more cousins, aunts, uncles, I no longer care to remember it all… Well, I simply couldn't take it and left. Hailed a carriage with as much dignity of the upper class woman that I could muster so as to be listened to, being only a female after all, and faked a letter to my relatives telling them that Father wanted me to come back… Then I simply went back to the mansion and hid for these past three days in Mother's old bedroom, which was when my nightmares got so bad that I could no longer sleep for more than an hour at a time. My sister helped me… got me food, books, and the like. She was more or less my only friend for the whole of my existence, for the bloody bane of my existence, as it has been to me. But… I could still never tell her of most of this; she was my sister, she loved me, but… she could never quite understand me. No one could ever quite understand me. I know she tried; she really did, but she didn't really have many alms about our lifestyle, while it continued to be a constant torment to me. So, she did the best she could, never quite understanding just why I hated being a woman of the upper class.

"So you see," she finished at last, sliding down the wall to a sitting position in which she could put her arms around her knees and not look at him, her head down, "my life… has not been as overly spectacular as you would expect. If there hadn't been a part of me that adored challenges such as those thrust before me, those which I have already explained, I would have either conformed or ended my miserable existence by now, both of which I deem to be drastically preferable to my present state.

"And so I envy you, Jack Sparrow

"Captain Jack Sparrow," he cut in, purely out of instinct, regretting it almost the very next moment.

"Fine, Captain; I envy your obvious freedom if it bloody pleases you, and your ability to do what you want, go where you want, to become bloody famous in the process. I envy the fact that you could actually die at a moment's notice, and that I-that I cannot… Oh, I'm sorry, I almost forgot.

"Captain."

There was a tense moment of silence between the two, one in which Leah Swann was regretting pouring out her heart so much that she could not look at him, could not take her head off of her knees, could not bring her face up. She knew that her bodice was most likely sullied from this foul floor by now, but did not care. She didn't care about much at that moment, not even her own sister's fate.

"So," she said at last, lifting her head with the strands of tangled hair yet obscuring her face, unable to take the quiet anymore, "do you have anything to say, Sparrow? Any comments?"

"Aye, actually. That I do."

"Well?" she sighed, bracing herself for what was sure to be a taunt or jeer.

"Your life sounds as if it has been downright awful, darling," he said blatantly. She looked up at him, startled. He wasn't going to ridicule her for her confessions? He wasn't going to call her a fool or something of the sort? Well, this was surprising. It seemed as if he understood. "I've got a few more comments I would like to add, actually." Hand movement of course yet accompanied his every word. Well… almost, though they did tend to clarify just what he was saying quite a bit.

"Please," she said, "go on."

"Well for one thing, killing yourself won't solve a bloody thing, Miss Swann. It'll send you down to hell sooner than ye can blink, and from the looks of you, you don't deserve it down there.

""Secondly, and I'm sure you knew this was coming, luv, but, really, the self pity has to end." She looked up, eyes wide. This wasn't exactly ridicule… but what was it? Was it some sort of advice? Coming from the legendary, infamous, Captain Jack Sparrow? "True, your life has been horrible, and deserving of sorrow, but really, if you'd thought about it a bit more, don't you think you would have been able to handle it a tad bit better? Nightmares could even end if you face facts, darling. Face your bloody life and what's happened, don't dwell on it, and move on." Yes, advice, certainly advice, and good advice at that. But it was advice that made Leah instantly look down, averting her eyes.

"Thirdly…" There was a brief pause in which she heard a rustle and then extremely soft footsteps. Then… she felt her head being tilted up by the chin. Gasping, she instantly looked up, right into the captain's eyes. "Thirdly, you're absolutely right. You would end up killing yourself eventually if left back there in Port Royale or wherever the hell your father sends you off to, so… I'm willing to let you come along with me, a pirate's life." He moved slightly back, sitting down on the floor in front of her, legs up before him much as Leah's were, but he wasn't huddling in a fetal position like the female.

"Wha-what did you say?" Had he just-

"Once we're through with this grand ol' rescue of your dear Elizabeth, I'm willing to give you a trial run as one of me crew. Not permanent mind you, but taught how to use a blade, a gun, and with your apparent abhorrence of society… I'm thinking it could do you good, and you could be useful."

"I-I couldn't," she managed to stammer out, too stunned to move. "I-my father-I-a pirate?"

"Aye, a pirate. Think about it, luv… freedom, ability to do and dress how you want… or that wonderful life you have goin' on for you back with your father, the lovely Governor Swann?"

"Do-do you mean it?" she asked, actually beginning to absorb just what it was he was saying. She still wasn't certain on the details-such as whether he even had a crew and whatnot- but she was beginning to see a tiny sliver of hope in the complete limbo of agony in which she lived, a glimmer of light in the darkness that was her life.

"That I do."

She smiled, a real smile this time, not one in which she was dwelling over her own hardships. He had been right about that. She did seem to rejoice in self-pity almost to the point of masochism, and that would have to end. But this was something she'd never dreamed of…

Then, still smiling, she began to laugh, shaking her head.

Once she was done and about to speak, she looked up, only to see the man watching her curiously. "What?" she asked, traces of mirth still visible upon her visage.

"I don't think I've ever actually seen you smile or heard you laugh out of actual joy, luv."

"I-I've smiled!"

"Well, unless you're a complete sadist at heart, I doubt very much that those were actual smiles."

She smiled again, suppressed a giggle. That was certainly correct.

"So," he said, getting them back on subject, "What'll your answer be, then?"

"Yes," she said, smiling. "I'll go with you… if you'll have me."

"'Course I will," he assured her, and stood, offering her his hand. "Now then, Miss Swann-"

"Leah."

"What?"

"Leah. You may call me Leah, Jack." A little surprised, he made a sort of nodding motion and helped her to her feet.

"Well then." Turning his back on her, he began back towards the bed, the dawn still not even peaking out from the horizon. "Shall we go back to sleep? From the sound of things, you really do need some rest, darling, and we still got some time."

"Good idea." She, of course, followed him and lay down on her own side of the mattress… before realizing something. "And do not call me bloody 'darling' or 'luv'!"

"Good night, Leah," he said, more or less ending the conversation, and, turned away from her, lay down on his side.

Shaking her head in bemusement, the 17-year old got under the covers herself and, not so very close to the edge this time, and fell quickly asleep, nightmares never more at bay. One lone question strayed into her mind just as it was getting on to oblivion, though. Why? But she pushed it away. At that time, she would not have it.


Remember, guys, if you review, you get your own special reply down here! And you'll get… MORE COOKIES!!!

Dimonah: Hehehe… that was fun to write as well. Glad you're enjoying!

Rebel L.: Well, I'm guessing this here chapter answers some questions for ya on her past (at least, it should… Unless I messed up horribly…) And yes, but I needed Will OUTTA there! Besides, it was kind of a mix between her being so bloody ANGRY and the fact of her social status and yeah that got him outta there. Many contributing factors.

TriGem: Yes, but Will did leave, so MUAHAHAHAHA they were all alone! And I am hoping that your question was answered in this chapter. If you would like me to elaborate more, just say so, and I shall. (Hence, make sure to review ;) )

Pirate: Yes, our dear Miss Swann has started to warm up to Jack Sparrow. Oh, 'scue me. Captain Jack Sparrow.

Ipzy: lol Well she snaps out of her grumbling/self-pity… later… more or less…

Dian: I knew the constant bugging would come in handy! And you have absolutely no idea how much fun I had writing that long string of insults and how hard it was to limit it and not put more…

Suzzie: Sure you wouldn't. ;) And he's not really drunk per se… Not really.

Velvetina: I do? YAY!!!! I try. Thankees! :D Just watching snippets of the movie or listening to it while writing sure help. And I'm hoping I didn't end this chapter at a horribly yick part for ya. Promise to update soon.

Shane: And forever shall be. :D

Leah: lol Yes, I suppose, although I don't know if it's possible to straighten the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow out. We'll see though… Evil maniacal laugh

Cassie: Very honored you've taken the time to review my fic then! Is happy to know she captures Jack's essence I hope you enjoy this chappie!