Disclaimer: Let things which belong not to me be accredited to those to whom they belong. And it was so, and the belonging of things was great, and the belonging of things was largely not to me.

Chapter 22: Origo Pestis et Gwenae

Gwen turned abruptly, startled from her search of the old man's roughly-built chest of drawers, to face Jack as he burst through the doorway behind her. The tan of his skin and the sun-bleached white of his shirt and the dingy red hue of his bandana, all in their peculiar lantern-illuminated shades and tones, made him a stunning figure to force its way through the door. Captain Sparrow's image lacked not even a single subtle detail to make him an arresting and imposing presence at that moment, and Gwen felt immediately convicted of her crimes against his pride and trust in sneaking off the ship. But still, she couldn't help noting that without his hat and without his coat, he looked rather like a disgruntled gypsy, baring the rims of some of his golden teeth at her in a displeased, grim frown, his hair-beads swinging.

Behind Jack, a very inebriated Bill Jacobs slid into the one-room cabin, muttering something about a former naval midshipman and about an urn and about the destructive and chaotic qualities of rabid monkeys as he seated himself mechanically at his stocky old table.

Gwen's brow furrowed at this, but she dismissed him quickly from her immediate concern and turned back to meet Jack's condemning glare with her own narrow-eyed stare.

"Whadda ye mean by all this?" Jack finally asked, purposefully letting his eyes rake over the figure she presented. The boots she wore looked a bit too bulky on her for them to actually fit her well. He recognized them as a pair he had pilfered not so long ago, only to discover belatedly that they were much too small for his feet. He'd somehow sluggishly never gotten around to just chucking them overboard, and he silently cursed himself for giving her even that small help in the assembly of her costume this night.

Tucked into the boots she wore a pair of grey-colored pants which didn't quite fit her either. A long strip of a pin-striped sheet very similar to the one he'd torn his own sash from, wound around her waist after his own style, seemed to be the only thing holding the trousers up. The sash also secured the tail of the shirt she wore, a washed-out shirt that had once been blue. The wide, low neck opened halfway down to his navel when he wore it himself- this being the free, comfortable style he preferred. Gwen had taken the extra effort of trying to tie or pin the gap closed, but she had only succeeded partially.

His coat, pulled over the shirt, was clearly intended to disguise any overt features of her femininity, but he noted, in spite of himself, the curve of her hip and more enticingly, the rounded, natural shape of her unsupported breasts hidden beneath the heavy fabric.

Jack's survey of her took only a few seconds before he raised expectant eyes to meet hers again. In the same instant, he unceremoniously lifted his beloved old tricorne from her head and settled it over his own unruly mass of dreadlocks, braids, and tangles. His eye drifted for a moment to ruefully consider the exotic look he himself had given her in plaiting her hair after the vague likeness of his own. Another finger of blame to point at himself in aiding her with her guise.

"Well?" he finally prompted, waving his hand peremptorily.

Gwen released her lower lip, silently chastising herself both for getting caught in her venture and, more importantly, for not having a proper excuse prepared. "I-" she began haltingly. "Well, I-"

"Ye snuck off my bloody ship in the middle of the bloody night!" Jack blasted, since she didn't seem to be able to get a handle on her tale. He leaned close, his eyes wide, gesticulating in vague, flowing shapes which Gwen took to mean first "ship," and then "night." She could smell the now-familiar scent of rum on his breath and frowned when she found it necessary to resist an ill-timed urge to kiss him, to taste him.

"Yes," she agreed, realizing the stupidity of her response. But she also mentally noted the uselessness of Jack's own statement as well.

When she didn't go on, Jack picked up his irritated accusations again, pointing out various objects on her person or in her hand for her consideration as he spoke. "Me hat, me coat, me compass. And wha's that?"

Gwen clenched her hand tighter around the slip of paper in her hand, the selfsame scrap she'd found in this very cabin, with Jacobs' things. She clamped down on her facial expressions too lest she inadvertently give away any of the suspicions she was beginning to have after deciphering the scrawled handwriting on it. She wasn't sure she wanted him to know about the beliefs she had based on the writing and other clues until she was sure herself that they were true. "That would be me- er- my… it's mine."

Jack's eyebrows immediately lowered and his gaze turned suspicious. Gwen rushed on, changing the subject before she could accidentally let anything else about that particular secret slip out.

"I- I came after the treasure, Jack. I think it's down where he said there was a garden, down the slope behind the house," she said, pointing appropriately at Jacobs (who was now snoozing with his head down on the table, making light wheezing and snuffling sounds), and then in a direction toward the back of the little house.

He simply raised an eyebrow at her, and she obediently went on.

"I had to sneak! You wouldn't just let me go looking for 'your' treasure, now would you? I thought this would work, which it did. At least, it worked long enough. The men thought I was you, didn't even pay me any attention, really, until I was already gone. I heard the shout go up and the orders given to find you, but I was already pretty far gone…"

Jack huffed in an exasperated sort of way. "To hell with how ye got here, wench. Why were you going after my treasure?"

"It's not all yours. It's to be split with the entire crew, in accordance with your own Code," Gwen retorted, raising her chin defiantly at her smart aleck comment.

The smoldering glare that he fixed her with was more than enough to inform her of just how well he appreciated such dry humor at this instant. Gwen's insolence waned quickly into a rather sheepish stance as she tried to think of how justify her position to him, since he was obviously going to allow no lies or coquettishness. It was already beginning to sound silly even to herself, anyway.

Lowering her eyes to his feet, she told his boots in a hesitant tone, "I… wasn't- or at least, I haven't for the past- well, I don't intend to leave the Pearl at all when this is all over and Will and Elizabeth go back to Port Royal. You never answered when I asked to stay..."

She glanced up to see what effect these words had on the owner of the boots. He merely stared down at her with an unreadable expression on his face. Dropping her gaze once again to the neutral focal point of his feet, she went on with her explanation to them. "I assumed you would be eager to drop me off in Port Royal. So I thought perhaps if I could find the treasure, it could… it might convince you I'm useful enough to stay on-board. I guess … Tom… I suppose I was feeling unnerved and I felt like I had to do something. It seemed like a good idea at the time…"

Jack laughed. He laughed at her. Although her mention of the dead crewman checked his mirth. "Still naïve, Gwen," he told her simply after a moment.

Gwen didn't say anything, but she looked up and met his gaze evenly.

"And still rash," he said, grinning his golden grin at this. Her rashness he had a greater liking for than for her naivete, which she frequently used as something to hide behind when her occasional mischievous comments bordered on angering him. Even when he knew she was only pretending to be innocently unaware of what she was saying or doing, he always found it hard to properly condemn her or curse her when she donned the halo of child-like innocence. Rashness, though, he could relate to and appreciate as being a reckless trait.

Gwen was idly considering the fact that even yet, she rarely heard her name fall from Jack's lips. He still tended to speak at her, especially since a sizable portion of their conversation occurred when there were only the two of them in the cabin, and he didn't feel a need to address himself specifically to only one person.

Gwen. He said it with a curious enunciation she couldn't quite identify. Perhaps he pronounced the "G" a bit more than most people did, or perhaps he lingered on the vowel sound a little longer.

"And still absent sometimes," Jack said, waving a hand before her face.

Gwen blinked at him, focusing her vision and mind on him.

"Let's say I buy that." He held up a finger to stall her protests as to the veracity of her confession. "Now, lass. Ye said yerself- and the compass, were we to ask it just now, would probably say the same- that the treasure be that way." His hand flipped about to point in the same general direction Gwen had indicated a moment or two ago. "Why are you here?" The pointing finger jabbed down at the ground to indicate the cabin itself.

"I was tired and decided to rest for a moment or two in the cottage here, since this was on my way." She answered quickly, hoping she didn't sound to Jack as if she were being evasive. "It was more work than I expected to row that boat to shore, and then there was that hike."

Jack didn't argue with this, as it was probably true, though he did give her a somewhat skeptical look. There was something she wasn't coming completely clean about. He casually noted that her hands were empty now except for the compass. She had slipped the paper she'd had earlier into one of the coat pockets, no doubt. Sly.

Without any explanation for his actions, Jack snatched up his lantern from where he had set it on the table beside Gwen's. He passed hers to her as well, and paused for only a brief moment to consider the sleeping Jacobs. Jack had been on the verge, an hour or so earlier, of relenting in his suspicions of Jacobs, but they were now back full force. Jack had more than bounteous experience with drunks, being among the ranks of the thoroughly intoxicated himself from time to time, and Jacobs was a creepy drunk. And experience had taught Jack that creepy drunks never had a perfectly reasonable excuse for being creepy. At the very least, though, for now, the old man was incapacitated. He'd have to sleep it off, so Jack felt perfectly justified in leaving him behind for now. Best he didn't come with them now, in fact, if they were going to go search for his treasure right under his nose and in spite of his claims to its "true" location.

Taking her by the arm, Jack guided Gwen toward the doorway and ushered her out into the night.

"What-"

"Follow the compass, lass. We're going to solve this once and for all tonight, 's'long as we're here."

Old Bill awoke sitting at his table in his old cabin. As he did every morning when he awoke, he reminded himself that he was exiled here on the island. And reminded himself that he was to be civilized nonetheless. Reminded himself of the balance of good and evil and all such things in the world. Then, he remembered the Black Pearl and her captain and the young lady coming for him, and he spent a long while trying to decide if it was a dream or no.

As he gazed around at the dark interior of his hut, he waited for the haze of sleep to clear away. But it didn't. It was the stupor of strong drink, he remembered foggily after a moment. Drinks he'd gotten on the ship, he remembered. He glanced into the corners of his hut again with this new realization. If he wasn't on that ship… well, why was he back in his cabin? How did he get there, and where was everyone?

These were very intriguing and important questions, of course, but the alcohol made him merely grin amusedly at his predicament as he idly considered how drunk he was.

It wasn't quite morning yet. The inside of his cabin was only half a shade lighter than the absolute dark of night. But as he waveringly stood and stepped outside, he entered the curious realm of predawn.

Just before dawn, all of the earth takes on a mystical silvered appearance, the barest first hints that day is coming soon. The twilight of the evening is considered more often as a time of magic, as all of the nocturnal creatures and darker forces of the natural and supernatural planes awake and begin to prowl about, but the twilight of morning sees those beings silently back into slumber, a far more intriguing aspiration than awaking them. It's at this time of day that souls like Jacobs or Jack or perhaps even Gwen find the world to be most fascinating and mysterious.

As Jacobs stood, supported in the doorway of his hut, blinking happily into the pale gloom and grinning stupidly at the world he saw in his intoxication, he automatically went through his morning ritual of recitations. 'Twas better to sacrifice one's own comfort than to sacrifice others on a personal altar to one's own greed and jealousy. Greed led to piracy led to jealousy led to death led to guilt and pain. And all manner of similar endorsements to his accepting a peaceful life alone on the island. So he wouldn't go mad.

With the brandy running through his veins and clouding his brain, the familiar self-encouragements didn't quite soak all the way in, but that was all right. He knew them well enough. It was best for him to be on the island, and it was best for him to remain there, where it was safer for others as well as himself. Because… well, because… he couldn't quite remember.

Ah well. Where the devil- ahem- wherever did those ship-people get off to? Not down by the garden? No, that was silly. Why would they be there? He sluggishly wondered why he would jump to the conclusion that they would be in such a silly place as that. They would be on the ship, of course. Ship-people wouldn't bother with gardens. Ah, the garden. Yes, it must be checked on. Every morning, it must be checked on.

He made his way, lurching and rebounding off of the occasional tree, around the house and down the familiar pathway down the slope behind.

"With silver bells… and golden bells," he mumbled cheerily as he went. "And pretty jewels all in a row."

Jack stood at the entrance of the cave, staring out at the almost-eerie fronds, stalks, and leaves of the huge "garden" as the plants whispered amongst themselves about the imminent sunrise, only an hour off now.

There was no way a man could have simply domesticated himself such a varied garden from the limited and largely non-edible plant life of a random island like this. These crops could only be the product of intentional preparations and planning. And it was the final straw on a camel of suspicion that suggested to Jack that Jacobs was hiding his own, true version of the tale regarding himself and his treasure in much the same way Jack tended to keep mum about the less-embellished truths behind legends about himself. But Jack's tales didn't involve people dying unexpectedly of unknown causes.

Gwen came to stand beside him, sliding a string of pearls idly through her hand. They'd explored the entirety of the cave, which stretched for a few hundred feet into the gut of the little mountain which was the most notable geographic feature of the island and on which Jacobs had elected to built his hut. Jack had admitted that it was a modest find compared to the hoard that had been stashed away for ten years by the cursed mutineers who had stolen the Pearl from him. But still, the size of the cache and the amount of loot squirreled away in it suggested that Jacobs and his men had saved at least portions of their booty for several months and stowed it away here for safekeeping. It was still a sizable cache, though, and Jack didn't believe it was possible that all of the treasure had rested at any one time in the belly of the Neptune's Lady, Jacobs' old ship. He was uncertain if he dared to laden the Black Pearl itself with so much heavy cargo.

Gwen was thinking, not for the first time in the past hour or so, about how quickly Jack had dismissed her confession of intentions to remain aboard the Pearl. One way or another, he thought she was silly for thinking it such an issue. But did he think she was being silly because there wasn't a devil's chance he would allow her to stay? Or did he think she was being silly merely in thinking that she would be challenged on that point?

"There was no storm," Jack said.

"Hmm?" Gwen looked up at him, confused.

"He ran his ship aground purposely. Stowed a gulley-full o' treasure in that cave, with the rest of it already there, and cannibalized his own ship for building supplies." Jack shuddered slightly at the unbidden image of the Pearl in pieces at the doing of his own hands. "Why?"

Gwen stood silently, having no answer for him, but admittedly rather impressed by his logic as he rapidly pieced together everything he knew about the entire situation to try to discern the truth.

"Let's have it," he said suddenly, thrusting his hand out toward her, palm up. He waggled his fingers at her impatiently when she didn't move quickly enough to please him. "That bit of paper, the one you've been hiding from me."

She merely stared at him for a moment. Bloody pirate. Clearly, he was far more observant than she gave him credit for. Finally, grudgingly, she produced the slip of paper from a coat pocket, reluctantly handing it over to him. Jack snatched up his lantern where he had set it down at his feet, holding it up near the slip of paper so he could read.

Then Gwen waited for him to reason out and discover what Gwen now feared was true. She was afraid to ask Jacobs any questions though. It was clear he didn't really know, and she didn't want to alert him to the fact. Didn't seem prudent.

However, when Jack looked up at her again, he looked baffled, not enlightened. "Explain," he said shortly.

Ah. Gwen had forgotten- he didn't know this part. In their weeks of acquaintance, Jack had heard the skeletal outline of her origins. How her maternal grandmother had gone from somewhere in the Caribbean back to England to raise her daughter alone. And then how, at her grandmother's eventual death, her mother had been supremely fortunate to achieve a marriage to a man considerably higher above her in rank and wealth. However, of course, there were plenty of trivial details Jack wouldn't have at his disposal to help him interpret the handwritten message in relation to her.

When Gwen didn't answer him immediately, as though he thought doing so might stimulate her response, Jack read aloud the words, cramped onto the little scrap of paper in unsteady print.

"'I practice my letters still. As always, thank you for the lessons. Return soon. You were always my favorite. -Rose' Why does that mean anything to ye?"

Gwen still took her time answering. "The cabin was on the way here. But I only stopped because I wanted to look for more clues before I jumped to any conclusions."

"Do ye know who this Rose is?" he asked, beginning to become irritated again.

"Rose!" came a cry just then.

Gwen and Jack barely had time to exchange apprehensive looks before the tromping sound of Jacobs' feet brought him toward the mouth of the cave where they stood. He emerged from around the overgrown, brush-covered lip of the cave.

"Ol' chap," he was saying as he rounded the corner and faced them. "Di' I hear you say- Ah! Rose, dear. But where's your fine dress, love? Always one o' the oddest I see, and here looking half like a man tonight."

Jacobs, listing heavily toward first one side and then the other as his balance wavered between extremes, paid no further attention to Jack after his initial greeting addressed to him. He lurched toward Gwen, grabbing her arm lightly just above the elbow and pulling her back a few steps.

"Have you 'eard of me being a god now, Rose?" he asked, chuckling.

Gwen was wide-eyed but didn't look particularly surprised at his mistaking her, in his drunken miasma, for someone he once knew. She glanced at Jack for a brief second. Then, rather than let the chance slide by, she played along. "I haven't. Tell me," she said quickly.

"Me 'n' the boys just in fresh from an adventure. Down round the Middle Africas. They insisted on worshiping me, give me a new compass what don' work." He laughed heartily to indicate his disbelief and amusement. "Lucky, though."

"Tell me," Gwen urged again.

Jacobs frowned in the peculiar fashion of those recalling unpleasant memories, and he shook his head slightly. "Never mind that. Fellas jest want another excuse to be jealous over what's mine. So's they start inventin' things to be jealous of."

Gwen started to say something, to this, but Jacobs interpreted her attempt to speak before she could actually say something.

"I know what ye're go'n' t' say. But I'm not all that greedy, Rose. I share you, after all, don' I? Don't expect ye to stick to me anymore'n I stick to jest you. But none'a that's important now. Think m' luck's changing. You jest wait, though, ye'll be hearin' o' Black Bill and his crusades this time next year."

Gwen smiled along with him for appearance's sake, but was unsettled by the relation of the tale. Her eyes cut away toward Jack again, and as she met his gaze, she saw the same realization in his eyes.

Jack had had plenty of experience with the supernatural. He'd even been cursed himself for a brief period of time. He wasn't a skeptic. And if the alcohol-induced honesty of a crazed old man was to be given any credit at all, Jacobs was claiming himself, not his hoard of treasure, to be the source of the curse connected with his name. All of Jack's suspicions were aroused, and he furthermore felt them all more than justified. This man was surely responsible for the demise of his own crew so long ago… and for the fresh death of one of Jack's. But why?

"Why did ye kill them?" Jack found himself asking.

Jacobs turned, surprised, to regard him curiously. "I wouldn't kill anyone," he said. Though his words still slurred together by the blur of the brandy, the swaggering sailor's accent was replaced with his usual, more erudite speech. The switch wasn't lost on Jack. "Who are you talking about?"

"Yer crew," Jack answered.

"My crew," Jacobs repeated absently.

"Ye killed your crew over this," Jack accused, sweeping his hand around in random gestures to point out the treasure lying about.

The old man's brow furrowed as he looked around the cavern, lit by the lantern in Jack's hand as well Gwen's light where she had left it several yards deeper into the subterranean den. As the man left off his reverie and drifted back into the present, Jack expected to see enlightenment cross his features.

Jacobs did seem to recognize his surroundings then, and the shining wealth that littered the place, but it was with a sort of confused detachment that he viewed them. When he looked again to Gwen, though, he seemed taken again by whatever freak had led him to believe she was his Rose from times past, and his expression became fierce.

"It's mine," he insisted suddenly, harshly. "Only through my doin's we got any of it. It's all mine."

Jack stepped forward, opening his mouth to respond to Jacobs' sudden aggression.

But he halted as though he had run into a wall, and his words were crushed before they could reach his lips as an invisible hand clenched around his ribs. Jack could feel his heart racing faster. His lungs suddenly felt like they were filled with molten lead, not air, and his gut wrenched and twisted searingly within him. He tried to move, or say something, but the world was fading into darkness around him, and interaction with the black nothing outside of himself seemed futile. He could only concentrate on the way his blood was freezing in his veins. Or was it burning? Liquid fire, burning as it ran through his body, consuming all. He tried to will the volatile ichor back into life-giving blood; tried to draw clear, fresh air into his starved lungs; to calm the desperate, empty racing of his heart.

"What are you doing to him?" Rose's voice echoed through Jacobs' ears. And yet it sounded a little different. Perhaps it was just his imagination. She was dressed oddly as well, he'd already pointed out. If she could be transported somehow, magically, from Tortuga to where they were now, in this cave full of treasure, though, he figured it was acceptable within the enchantment that she look and sound a bit different. Always was an odd sort of wench anyway. Claimed she was saving up to go to England. And still wanting to gain the ability to read from him instead of having him pay in gold, like her other "clients."

"He's dying!"

He frowned. Dying? What was she prattling on about? He cast his gaze about him. There was treasure. And more treasure. It was all his. But he didn't see anybody dying. Just treasure. All his, of course. If someone was dying, that'd be one less person who'd want to steal his treasure from him anyhow. Let 'em die. But there wasn't anyone there. He'd never hurt anyone. Or, that's why he was here on the island, wasn't he? To not hurt anyone? His head ached, trying to sort this out with the brandy still stalling it.

"Hush up, wench," he insisted then. "C'mere." Catching her roughly around the waist with one hand, and her arm with the other, he pulled her toward him. Rather than submit to him, though, she recoiled from him, shrugging out of his loose embrace and wrenching her arm from his grasp.

"What the devil-"

He was silenced when he found himself at the mercy of a gun Rose had produced from a pocket of her man's-jacket and which she now aimed steadily at him with her face screwed into a determined expression.

"Let him go!"

"Devil take ye, slut, put that down, and stop yellin' nonsense."

"I'm not your Rose," Gwen said through clenched teeth, trying to will away the foul sensation of his hands on her skin where he had grabbed at her so inappropriately, especially considering his relation to her, even though he didn't know it. She had to fight down bile to keep her disgust and repulsion from causing her to vomit. As coolly and levelly as she could manage, she aimed her weapon at him. She wasn't sure anymore how much of Jacobs' vulgar and belligerent behavior to blame on alcohol. He was beyond mad. Jack's madness was tempered impeccably with genius, wit, and his own code of morality. Jacobs, though, was showing obvious signs of the sort of madness of a broken mind and a dangerous man.

Jack.

He had fallen, much like a tree, into stiff heap on the cold stone floor. His lungs were heaving frantically, his hands clenched into fists so tight his rings were biting into the flesh of his fingers.

"You're killing him!" She couldn't help the exclamation, even though she knew she was beginning to sound hysterical, and that her cries were having no effect on Jacobs.

"It's the treasure, 'idn't it?"

Gwen stared at him incredulously.

"Finally, yer bloody letters aren't enough. Ye're after me gold too!"

"It's not about the damned treasure!" she snarled, heedless of her language, but her next sentence was broken off. It was as though the words had become volatile before she could even speak them, and had turned to liquid rock in her throat. She couldn't breath. She gasped, but no air seemed to make it past her throat.

Gwen stared, entranced, down the line of her arm to the pistol clutched in her hand.

The magma flowed, burning and paralyzing, into her lungs; whipped her heartbeat into a frenzied, panicked gallop; congealed her blood in her veins as it spread outward into her limbs, toward her extremities. Her vision began to fail, and she could barely feel the stiffening muscles in her hand…

Pain, as the air sliced into her lungs again like a jealous lover. Fatigue rushing in where her muscles had been frozen rigid. Throbbing, as her heartbeat, which seemed ponderously slow, pounded out its rhythm inside her skull.

She dared not move. Couldn't bear to move.

Until, after an eternity's moment, the pain receded into a tingle, the fatigue melted into a bearable weariness, the throbbing receded to a dull thrum. She cautiously sat up, taking in the scene around her.

The mystic silver of the dawn twilight had changed almost imperceptibly, in her few minutes' oblivion, to a pale golden glow as sunrise drew closer. The string of white pearls she'd been clutching in her left hand lay in the dirt at her side. Before her and behind her were sprawled two figures.

Gwen's eyes, as soon as she raised them, were involuntarily frozen on the old man before her. His silver-white beard, the white of his tunic, were sullied with crimson. The cursed, greed-driven madman was dead. But it still seemed to her that the body belonged to a snowy-clean prophet, and her heart ached at the thought of the man's apologetic, half-embarrassed smile at beating her in the card game, and the memory of his childish pleasure at meal-time. She realized her right hand was still clutching the culpable weapon, the pistol she'd taken from Jack's trunk as a safety precaution on her lonely venture. Turning loose of it, numbed, she tore her eyes away from the corpse, not wanting to think about the duality in the man. Or the fact that she'd killed him.

She'd killed him. An innocent man. And yet a murderer. And her-

"Did ye catch the officer what tried to hang me?"

She finally managed to tear her gaze away and turn to Jack. He was grimacing and holding his head. He groaned as he pulled himself slowly to his feet. Gwen watched his face as he slowly became aware of the scene below him. "Ye-" he began uncertainly when he saw the body.

"My grandmother- the one who sailed from the Caribbean- her name was Rosemary," Gwen said hesitantly, numbed but perfectly aware that it seemed a random thing to say. "My mother always insisted the Caribbean was no place for a lady. I think it's... because her mother had been a prostitute…"

Jack stared at her. Then his gaze flicked to the dead man, the man who'd seen some resemblance of some sort and had mistaken her, in his drunken rumination, as an old favorite whore. For a long moment, he was silent. Then he pulled Gwen to her feet, scooping up his hat as well the pistol she'd dropped, and affecting as close to a nonchalant demeanor as seemed appropriate, he led her from the cave. It was time to return to the Pearl, to sort things out and return to a normal balance of things.

"Acta est fabula," he murmured as he drew Gwen gently after him.

Gwen said nothing.

(several days later)

"We never found out what the curse was, or the blessing or whatever he called it."

Jack idly swirled the rum around in his mug. "Out with what ye're really thinking, luv."

Gwen didn't bother wondering how he knew there was more to her thoughts. "If he… was my grandfather… What if I have the ability to..."

Jack passed her his half-full tankard, digging out a full bottle of rum for himself from a desk-drawer. "I've wondered the same," he said blithely, sounding very much as though 'wondering the same' didn't really trouble his mind all that much. His coffers were full, so to speak, and Jacobs was no longer anything to worry about.

His relatively easy acceptance of Jacobs' death- especially considering the old man had lost his mind, was empowered with unnatural abilities to kill without even thinking about it, and was thus more than simply dangerous- had helped to soothe Gwen's troubled spirit. But no matter what the circumstances, even in self-defense and retaliation for harming and killing others, killing someone was not something she was finding easy to cope with. And of all people, her estranged grandfather.

Gwen didn't comment. But if he could put it out of mind, surely she could, at least temporarily. She drew deeply from the mug, closing her eyes at the strong flavor of the drink as she swallowed.

"We'll find out about ye sooner or later, aye?"

"Aye," she repeated impishly, though she reflexively chewed at her lower lip.

Jack lifted an eyebrow at her as he upturned his rum bottle and took a long pull from it.

Elizabeth and Will would soon be leaving them. The Pearl was now halfway back to Port Royal, where the two Turners would reassume their lives as upstanding citizens and await the birth of their child. And await the next time that Jack Sparrow would bring adventure to their lives. And Gwen… Jack hadn't brought up again her confessed intentions to stay with him. Well, to stay with the Black Pearl. Not him, really. The ship. But he did make allusions to a "we" when he assured her that they would eventually bring to light the details of whatever inherited mystic traits she had gained through her far-from-clean-cut grandparents.

"That doesn't matter now, luv," Jack was saying, and Gwen was almost surprised to note how close he was to her. He had crossed the cabin to her while she had been lost in thought. "We got the treasure, and ol' Jacobs… well, the poor devil's free from himself and we're all free from him, aye?"

"But what if people around me start dying?" she repeated glumly.

"Ye don't have any reasons to want them dead, do ye?"

Gwen eyed him doubtfully. "What does that have to do with it?"

"Well, ye said ye didn't start to black out yerself until he decided ye were after his treasure too. He didn't want any threats to his treasure to live. Tom must've accidentally mentioned something about the hoard."

Gwen considered this.

"None o' that, luv," Jack said at her pensive mood. He took another pull from his rum. Gwen sighed and swallowed the rest of hers.

She turned to set the mug down on the desk behind her. She sucked in a gasp of surprise, though, when she felt a cool liquid running down her chest, between her breasts, soaking through her dress.

"Jack!"

His tongue followed, lapping at the rum dripping over her skin. "It's been days," he murmured. "And ye need this."

"You mean you want it."

"That too," he said, pulling at the closures on her bodice with the hand not still grasping his rum bottle, and nudging her gently toward the bed.

Latin Lesson for this Chapter:

Origo Pestis et Gwenae- "The Origin of the Curse and of Gwen"

Acta est fabula (AHKT-a est FAHB-yoo-lah)- "Drama has been acted out." The actual meaning is self-explanatory, and in this case, appropriate. It also can be taken loosely to mean "It's over" (since the phrase was always used to signify the end of a performance in Roman theatrics), which would also be appropriate in this instance.