Chapter 11:

A/N: I don't have much time to write so I'm just going to jump right into the chapter, savvy?

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I could faintly see through the water but I saw enough to notice that Turner was about to jump in after me when some of Millson's pirates came after him. I was sinking and yet weightless as before, only this time was different. This time there would be no one to save me, I had to that myself.

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"LET GO! SHE'S GOING TO DIE! GET OFF OF ME!" William thrashed about as the pirates pinned him to the floor.

"That is the purpose Mr. Turner," Millson sneered.

Pirates were also holding down Elizabeth and Jack; Jack seemed in a daze. He was quiet and his eyes were dull. Elizabeth made a sideways glance over to Turner, "You knew Reynolds was a woman, didn't you?"

Turner found no time to answer that question as they were once again tied to the mast but this time on Millson's ship. "Send a few rowboats over, I want to see that ship in pieces!"

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I reached inside my boot and slid out my small dagger, I began sawing away at the rope that was wrapped around my leg. The air in my lungs was becoming stale causing my body to tire faster; I needed to resurface.

Finally the rope broke and I floated freely to the surface. My lungs rejoiced as fresh air filled them; out of the corner of my eye I could see the last rowboat make its way around the bow of the ship so I swam in that direction.

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Sparrow looked down at Ana desperately, praying that maybe she would just wake up and come back to him. He had lost both of them in his effort to save them, now he and his crew would pay.

"Jack, I'm sorry. I know you wanted so much to just save them, to keep them alive." Turner tried his best to comfort his Captain.

"If only I had ran after her instead of just starring. But I was scared, I had seen Justine before."

"Where? When?" Turner was now interested in the conversation.

"Never mind, it was nothing," Sparrow looked away as Millson and another, older man approached him.

"Captain Sparrow, this is Christopher Landers," Millson announced proudly.

"It's nice to meet you, if my hands weren't bond I'd shake your hand." Sparrow answered cockily.

"Mr. Sparrow," Christopher began.

"Captain! Captain, if you'd be so kind."

"Captain Sparrow, did you know that Reynolds was a woman when you permitted her to join your crew?"

"What is this an interrogation?" Sparrow snapped back.

"Just answer the question," Millson jabbed his side.

"No, I did not." Sparrow rolled his eyes and caught a glimpse of Ana's arm movement; she was alive.

"Do you know who she is? Captain Sparrow do you know who Justine Reynolds is?"

"No, no I can't say that I do." William looked at him suspiciously wondering what Jack was up to.

"I shall enlighten you then, she was the daughter of a young woman named Sarah Reynolds. They lived in a small cottage on the western part of England just off shore."

"And why would an upstanding gentleman, such as yourself, care about a young girl looking for a bit of adventure out on the great wide sea?"

"Because she is my step-daughter, Captain Sparrow."

"Where might the girl's real father be in all of this? I'm sure he'd like to know about all of this chaos."

"Oh, trust me he already knows, he's just unaware of it." Landers leaned in closer so that he could whisper into Sparrow's ear, "you're her father."

Jack's face turned white with fear, his eyes wide and his attention alert. "She has her mother's eyes, wouldn't you agree Captain?"

"They were jade green almost like a light forest color." Sparrow said halfheartedly.

"What was that? I could quite hear you." Christopher was pressing the matter; he wanted to see how long Sparrow's tolerance would last.

"I said they were green, like a forest!" Everyone was watching and listening intently at what was going on, was it true? Did the Captain really have a daughter?

"I believe she inherited her father's skin tone and hair color. How about we check the body and see?"

"You will do no such thing!" Elizabeth's voice was stern and certain, "You've already done enough damage to that poor girl, leave her and her father alone!"

"You're just upset that she was better than you. That she was his daughter, or maybe you're afraid that she stole your love." Christopher was standing an inch away from her face. "Whatever the case she is dead now."

"Go to hell," Elizabeth spat the words into his face.

"It's funny those are the same words she had used when I found out that she cared for the lad over there, ironic hugh?" Landers walked away laughing at all of the chaos that he had caused. "Pull the rigging up!"

The rigging was hoisted up and the warm seawater sprayed onto the deck floor. Christopher looked at the garbage but found no body. "Where's the body?"

"She must've sunk to the bottom," Millson interrupted.

"The rope is cut, she broke free. Search every part of the ship, I want her found!"

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I clung to the back of the last rowboat all the way over to the Pearl. Luckily for me the pirates in the boat were too stupid to notice the extra weight they were pulling.

"Skip! When we get on the ship go straight to the gunpowder and start working with it. Whatever is left after everything is set up we take back, Captain's orders."

The pirate named Skip answered abruptly and when we had reached the ship he was the first one off. I sunk back down into the water and under the boat so that I was unnoticed for the time being.

When I found that the coast was clear I climbed up the side of the ship and into one of the cannon holds. My clothes were heavy on my back so I did my best to ring the water out from them and my hair before heading down to the miniature "life supply", as Sparrow calls it, of gunpowder.

I slipped silently into the room diagonal from it waiting for Millson's scalawags to finish their dirty work. Four of the pirates walked by the door as I hid unseen in the shadows of the room, still waiting for the last two pirates to leave. I finally gave up on being patient and entered the other room.

"Psst! Skip!" My shout caught the one pirate off guard and as he turned around I knocked him in the head with a loose plank I had found. The other man almost instantly pulled out his pistol ready to shoot me in my gut, he pulled back the hammer and released the trigger but nothing had happened.

The stupid blighter had forgotten to load the gun first; this was to my advantage, or so I thought. He reached down next to him, as I grabbed out my pistol, and lit the gunpowder trail. My eyes circled through the room and I noticed an entire gunpowder trail with circles and loops and curves everywhere. "Oh great this is just what I need," he lunged at me his sword unsheathed.

My pistol shot across the room out of reach as I landed heavily on the floor. The man pinned me to the ground and punched my jaw line in the same exact place Millson had. When he raised his hand to hit me again I felt around with my fingertips for the board. Once I had a firm grip of the wood I raised it up and blocked my face as his fist came down; the board splintered as it broke in half from the blow. The pirate shook his hand to rid the pain of his now bleeding knuckles as I smacked him in the side of the head with the splintered wood, knocking him off of me.

I stood unsheathing my sword for my protection; the pirate stood to his full height and I suppressed a chill. His cold gray eyes gleamed at me, they were bloodthirsty and it seemed I was just the right taste to quench their thirst. He licked his lips and forced a powerful blow upon my cutlass. I recoiled when he drew back his sword swinging it crazily; never in my life had I ever seen a man handle a sword in such a way, it was medieval.

I dodged the next couple of blows by hiding behind the kegs of gunpowder, which he hacked to pieces without hesitation. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the flame turn a corner on the gunpowder trail so I went after it, "ah, I've found you!" The mangy cad stepped in my way drawing back his sword, my eyes widened and the I dropped to the floor and did the first thing that came to mind; I thrust me dagger into his thick thigh.

He collapsed to the floor holding his leg as I walked up to him and kicked his sword out of reach. "I've never been bested by any man," he argued his face showing a hint of embarrassment.

"Who said I was a man?" I felt my body work on its own; I had no control over what I did next. The blade to my cutlass was placed to his throat and I released all my anger within one powerful blow. In slitting his throat he choked a little at first then his remains became limp and lay sprawled out on the floor, blood still running from his neck.

I swallowed hard realizing the full intensity of my actions then without a though began my hunt for the flame that would blow Sparrow's ship to pieces.

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The other rowboats made their way back to the Sleeping Death and were hoisted up onto the deck. Millson approached one of his men, "where's Skip and Flanders?"

"Did they not come back yet?" The man looked puzzled as if he really had no idea of what was going on.

"Carl, my dear friend Carl," he lead the man to the spot on the deck where the plank would usually be, "When I put you in charge of this duty I expected you to follow through! Now tell me, where are Skip and Flanders?" Millson held the man's upper body over the edge of the ship screaming into his ear.

"I don't know sir, I'm sorry." Carl was virtually on the verge of tears.

Millson relaxed a little more, "No Carl, I'm sorry," Millson shot his pistol into Carl's side and his former crewmember toppled overboard into the murky ocean waters bellow. "Does anyone else wish to take a pleasant swim with the fishes, like Carl?"

One man looked over the edge and saw two sharks tugging at Carl's flesh savagely. His stomach twisted in a knot as Millson continued his speech, "Now then, I expect everyone of you when given a job on this ship, will fulfill i. I s that understood?"

The entire crew spoke up, "Aye!"

"Good," Millson turned to yet another one of his crew, "alert me as soon as Skip and Flanders get back. I want to have a little talk with them."

"Yes sir." The lad replied and he went off to watch out for the ,hopefully, returning crew.

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I gave up on searching for the flame so I simply stepped in front of the kegs of gunpowder, one of my feet on each side of the trail. When the flame showed itself I raised my sword high over my head waiting for the opportune moment to strike. As soon as that time presented itself I brought my sword down on angle and blocked the flame with the blade as I sampled it out. "There we go, all better."

I headed out of the room and up the steps to the cannon hold where I aligned three cannons with three different parts of Millson's ship and lit them.

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The deck shuddered as the first cannon ball knocked into the bow of the ship removing a chunk of the front end. The next two were almost simultaneous, one hit dead center just bellow the top deck and the other hit the stern.

Millson stepped up to the edge on the port side gawking at the wounds inflicted upon his ship, "When I get my hands on Skip and Flanders their as good as dead!"

"Sir! It's not them! It's Reynolds!" Millson ran over into the lad's direction and ripped the spyglass away from him. "She- she's steering the ship in our direction. Sir? Sir what should we do?"

"For Christ's sake man! She's only a woman, a girl even! She cannot stand against this crew; no one can stand up against this crew! Now, bring out the guns!"

The crew of the Pearl could barley believe their ears, Reynolds was alive and heading straight for them. Sparrow fiddled with his bounds until he completely removed them from himself. He stood waiting for Reynolds and his ship to arrive before making his move.

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I stood at the helm of the Black Pearl steering the ship, I was steering! Man, Sparrow was sure to give me a swell punishment after this, and what was I thinking? Cannon fire interrupted my thoughts; oh well atleast the punishment would be better than this.

I kept the ship head on, aligned with Millson's. I figured as long as I stayed straight the damage to the Pearl would be minimum because their ship was aligned horizontally while the Pearl was vertical so their cannons could not reach the entire length of the ship.

When the ships collided I grabbed up the musket by my side and fired at the first men to try and board Sparrow's galleon. When the men stopped crossing over I sat the musket down and unsheathed my sword and pulled out my pistol. My body felt strong and unbreakable while my mind shuttered with fear of death.

I made my way over to the other ship eyeing the crew as I walked. They were silent and eerie looking so I tried to focus my sight on something else and I came upon Ana-Maria. Her body had been moved, she was now sitting in a corner up right her head slouched over; I swallowed hard remembering her facial expression s she fell from my grasp.

As I stepped up onto the railing of the Sleeping Death I took notice of Millson standing about five feet in front of me, his crude smile made me shudder slightly.

"I thought you were dead," he posed in a fake sincere voice.

"Surprise, surprise, I'm not. Let's face it, your efforts in the past have been, well, useless. I just don't seem to die."

"It would appear so," his eyes flashed to someone behind me and before I could turn around I was grabbed around the waist and almost immediately lifted up from the ground. My sword and pistol dropped with a clang as I twisted and turned within my capture's arms.

Sparrow had taken notice of the significant bird engraved on my pistol and his gaze quickly shifted to me, for the bird on the gun was a sparrow flying into the sunset much like the tattoo on his arm. He pulled the binding rope over his head and raised his pistol to the back of Milson's head as he pulled the hammer back, "Release her!"

"Well, well, well, we're finally taking over the role of the protective father aren't we?" Millson stated his grin widening as he looked up at me; my eyes flew between Sparrow and Millson, what had he meant by the role of the protective father?

"I said let her go!" He pressed the barrel of the gun to the back of Millson's head.

"Oh, relax Jack. I just wanted to see if her eyes were truly green, as you had said her mother's were. You don't need to get all defensive, your daughter is safe and sound." I heard Christopher say as he released me onto the deck of the ship.

My eyes didn't leave Sparrow's as I took on the sudden realization of what Christopher was saying, your daughter, those words rang through my mind over and over again. For the first time in my life I had seen my father, my real father. I had been with him this whole time and didn't know it.

He was undoubtedly my father, his hair and skin tone matched mine as did his rough accent and way of thinking, and it was true I had my mother's eyes. She often had told me that when I was a child. I had frozen completely in that spot. "I thought you were dead. She told me that you had died! That you were part of the King's navy and your ship was attacked and that you died!" For the first time since my mother's death I cried, the warm salty tears slid down my cheek and rolled off of my chin onto my dirtied cotton shirt.

He swallowed hard and looked at me his eyes worried and kind, "Justine I-."

"Don't you call me that!" I put my calloused hand to my forehead and backed up slowly. "You abandoned me and my mother! You're not my father! I DON'T HAVE A FATHER!"

Millson smiled at the destruction and chaos aboard the ship, "I'm sorry to have to break up this most delightful reunion but we do have a fight to continue, if I remember correctly so let's get back to it shall we?" I didn't even notice Millson's attempt to slay me atleast not until Sparrow blocked it right in front of my face.

I stammered back taking on the shock of the blow before running over to cut the rest of the crew free. As I cut the rope Turner looked down at me, but I could not look up at him for fear of Elizabeth, who was also starring at me. "I'm glad you're alive, Justine." She was a little hesitant about saying my name for I knew that she knew of the threat I was to her love.

"Thank you," I met eye to eye with her and looked her over before returning to the brawl. Even though I was a small competition for her, it seemed she now could see me as a real person and that she respected me. My secret was out but for some reason it didn't bother me.

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A/N: Well that's all for today, I know it was long but it had to be. I had that rush to get it done, especially since my ten year old little sister has been bugging me this past week to finish it. Phew, you don't know pain until you know her, I'm telling ya! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I will try to update tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure how many more chapters there will be but I know the ending is not too far off. Well until next time, TA!