Deeply disappointed about my lack of reviews but oh well never mind. I'll live to write another day. Again, thanks to Katrina, and yet again I don't own the movie yadda yadda yadda.

*** A Hard Man To Predict

When Maggie steps off the ship on the third morning since she left Tortuga, she can hardly believe her eyes. The town laid out in front of her is so civilised and clean and so. so not Tortuga.

She thinks that maybe she should have sent a letter or something, to tell Susie that she was coming, but how could she ever have got a reply? She could never tell anyone where she had been, that she'd degraded herself so hugely, then fallen in love with the kind of man who would even visit a common prostitute. No, she decides, she won't tell anyone unless she really has to. Perhaps it would be better if no one knew she was even there at all, except Susie. Maybe she should tell Susie everything, just for the release of it, and to hell with the consequences. But first things first. She stops one of the sailors from the ship that brought her here.

'Excuse me, but could you give me directions to the Governor's house?'

He looks at her with an air of surprise. 'Why do you want to know?'

There would be no harm in telling the truth, she thinks. 'My sister is a maid there. I'm going to visit her.'

'Oh. Well, you see that big house up on that hill over there?' He points, and Maggie turns her head and sees a huge white house overlooking the entire town.

'Thank you,' she says to him, and walks off towards the mansion.

By the time she has picked her way through the crowded streets, and up the hill - it seemed so much smaller from the docks - it must be almost eleven o'clock, and Maggie is hot and tired from dragging her trunk all this way. She reaches the large imposing gates of the house, but walks around to the side where she finds a smaller gate with a sign by it, that says 'Service Entrance'.

She hoists her trunk one final time, and heads down the path to the back of the house. She knocks three times on the door, and is rendered speechless when it is Susie herself who opens it.

'Maggie! We thought you were lost!'

'I was, but now I'm not.'

'Oh, Miss Elizabeth will be so pleased to know you've come back' -

'No!' Maggie almost shouts it. 'No, no one can know I'm here.'

'Why?' Susie's face shows her sense of bewilderment. 'Just....because. Look, I'm tired, can I come in?'

'Oh of course, what am I thinking of? I'll show you up to my room.'

Carrying Maggie's trunk between them, they walk up the innumerable flights of stairs that lead to Susie's room. It is on the last but one floor of the house, with a beautiful view of the bay from the window.

'The room across the hall was going to be yours, but since we thought you'd disappeared or run off.what happened to you?'

Maggie sighs, and sits down heavily on Susie's bed. She didn't know how Susie would react, as she'd always tried to be protective of Maggie, seeing as how she was four years older. Ever since they had run away from home and their drunkard father and gone to work for the Swann family, Susie had taken care of Maggie. If she knew what had happened after the ship had been hit by that storm and stopped in Tortuga for repairs.

'I missed the boat.'

'You what?'

'I missed the boat.' It strikes Maggie how ludicrous this is, and she bursts out laughing.

'But where were you for the last two weeks? And how did you get here, you didn't have any money with you?'

Maggie stops laughing. 'I.worked.'

'Worked?' Susie is plainly confused. 'What work?'

'I was.a.barmaid. I didn't have to work for long, the passage here didn't cost much.' She wasn't going to tell Susie about the money she had left - there were still about forty silver pieces from the money Jack had given her.

'A barmaid? But.a bar in Tortuga.' Susie makes it plain that she thinks there is more to the story than Maggie is telling.

'What about it?' Susie raises one eyebrow, and Maggie cracks.

'Alright I was more than a barmaid.'

'Oh Maggie.' Susie sits beside Maggie and puts her arms around her little sister. Maggie leans into Susie and cries out all the salt of the ocean between her and Jack through her eyes.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

Maggie shakes her head, and simply cries and cries, but then she feels like to tell someone everything and have the comfort of it would be the best thing for her. So she tells Susie everything, about Jack, how he bought her, how he left her, and how she fell in love with him. Susie listens, and feels her heart break as Maggie spills out the story.

When Maggie is finished, she has stopped crying. She sits up and stares out of the window across the bay. 'You see I don't want anyone to know I'm here?'

Susie nods. 'I'll do my best to keep you secret, but you can't stay hidden forever you know. What do you intend to do?'

'I don't know. But I want to see him again.'

'That pirate? You want to see that pirate?'

'Yes.' Maggie can think of nothing but finding Jack, and the horrible suspicion that has been growing in her mind since he left her.

***

Cliff-hanger.wow I suck at cliff-hangers. But here we go, please review, it'll make my day. Maybe, unless something else really good happens.