I really have nothing to say at this point, except sorry for the cliff- hanger. Once again almost everything here belongs to the almighty Mickey Mouse, and thanks to Katrina for letting me ring her up at stupid hours to ask her dumb questions about the movie.

***

A Hard Man To Predict

'Well, now that there's no need to carry on to Port Royal, I suggest we simply return to our original course.'

'Mexico, sir?'

'That's the one. Go and relay that to the crew, if you would be so kind.'

Archie turns, and hurries out of the cabin.

'Now that we're alone,' Jack says from his position by the window, 'We need to decide what to do with the two of you. Do either of you know how long it takes to sail to Mexico from here?'

A shrug and a blank look from both Phoenix and Matthew.

'From where we are now, given the currents and weather systems we might run into along the way, there and back will take us about a month, including stops for supplies and however long the ship actually spends in port.'

A puzzled look crosses Phoenix's face.

'Why do we need to go to Mexico?'

Jack sighs. 'What do they have in Mexico?'

Matthew speaks up for the first time. 'Gold?'

'Got it in one lad! So, when we get back, if you want to stay then you can stay. If not, then we'll run you back to Port Royal. Savvy?'

Phoenix nods. 'Savvy.'

'Good. I'm glad that's sorted. Now, don't you both have somewhere to be?'

Two faces display blank looks again.

'You should be helping to sail the ship. Go!'

-------

Unlike Phoenix, who spends most of each day in the crow's nest with the telescope, Matthew hasn't yet found a niche on board the Pearl. He is treated as a kind of useful extra, which means a lot of running about doing fifty things at once. When the horizon is bare, Phoenix amuses herself by watching him.

There are as many navy ships as Phoenix can count on one hand out here. Today there haven't been any ships all morning. Any that she does see tend to pass far away, and are no cause for alarm. Most are merchant ships, and ordinarily would have been prime targets, but Jack has made it clear that this trip has one goal, and they are not going to be distracted from it.

Phoenix sits listlessly in the crow's nest, watching the northern horizon. She has come to appreciate the sound of the waves and the calls of the gulls, when there are any. Given her lack of vigilance, it is a little while before she spots the ship coming from the east, creeping up behind them. She takes out her telescope, and examines it. It is not a navy vessel or a merchant ship...On the mainsail there is some kind of design, a red bird of some sort, wings spread. It takes her no time at all to realise that it is following them.

She scrambles down the rigging and into her father's cabin. Inside, Jack is pouring over a map of the Caribbean.

'You could knock you know. It wouldn't kill you,' he tells her as she bursts through the door.

'There's a ship following us. It's not navy, and there's some kind of bird painted on the mainsail.

Jack's face pales beneath his tan. 'Show me.'

She takes him to the stern, where the other ship is just beginning to be visible. Jack peers through her telescope.

Archie and Matthew appear, with mysteriously bad timing.

'Captain'-Archie begins, but is ignored.

'Archie, tell the men to make ready the guns and bring the ship about. The Hawk is after us.'

'Mother of God,' Archie mutters, as he begins to tremble. 'Santos.'

'Go and do it man! Don't just stand there quaking!'

'It's her!' he yelps, pointing a shaking finger at Phoenix. 'My brother always said it was bad luck to have women aboard!'

'Just go!'

Archie scurries away, the terror condensing on his brow.

'He's such an odd man,' Matthew whispers to Phoenix, trying not to disturb Jack for fear of an outburst. 'Why would a ship remind him of his brother?'

'Because,' Jack says, without turning round or taking the telescope from his eye 'the captain of that ship killed his brother in cold blood.'

'What?' Phoenix and Matthew shout in unison, over the rising roar of the crew's activities.

'That captain, Santos'-Jack almost spits the name-'served on this ship. He tried to incite mutiny and failed. Archie's brother, Charlie Gibbs, he tried to fight Santos. He was run through. We marooned the bastard but he escaped. That's a little family history, now will you go and do something useful?!'

Phoenix has never seen her father so agitated. The Hawk is drawing closer and closer now, and the Pearl swings around in preparation for the coming battle. Phoenix is thrown to the deck in the violence of the roll, and finds strong arms hauling her to her feet.

'Do you have weapons?' Matthew shouts, his voice showing his desperate struggle to control his panic.

Phoenix ducks and draws her daggers.

'That won't be enough! Come with me!'

He takes her hand and they run, weaving through the crew, down to the hold. Matthew prises open a crate with a deftness that suggests familiarity, and shoves a sword complete with scabbard and sword belt, into Phoenix' hands.

'Strap this on, and get back on deck. Hurry!'

'How did you know what was in this crate?'

He blushes for a second. 'I've been practising down here every morning.'

'Oh. Just like we used to?'

'Yes,' he says, strapping on a sword of his own. 'Now get back on deck. And Faye, sorry, Phoenix...' he pauses.

'What?'

The kiss comes out of nowhere, and Phoenix is momentarily stunned, as is Matthew by his own daring.

'Just be careful.'

With that he dashes out, and back up into the chaos. Phoenix stands very still for an instant, and then grins stupidly at the wall. She hears the first cannon shot fired from above her, and remembers what she's supposed to be doing.

On deck, it is mayhem. No matter how many times they fire the cannons, they seem to do little or no damage, and the Hawk is still heading straight for them.

'They're going to try and board us! They're going to try and capture the ship!' Archie yells to Jack, who is standing in the middle of the deck, bellowing orders.

'I bloody know that you fool!'

The Hawk is coming ever closer, almost seeming to be dodging the cannon fire. It pulls alongside, its stinking crew stood on the deck, shouting and brandishing their weapons. Phoenix suppresses a shudder, and screeches back with the rest of the Pearl's crew. She yells every curse she can think of, and a few she makes up on the spot. Matthew tries not to let his shock show. This is in her blood after all.

Matthew notices that just on the edge of the mêlée on the other ship, there is a dark woman dressed in men's clothing with a faded bandanna around her head. She is simply staring. Matthew follows her gaze, and finds that its object is Phoenix. He eyes never wander, they stare with a frightening intensity.

Matthew has no more time to wonder about it, as an order is shouted from somewhere on the other ship and suddenly there is an onslaught of stinking pirates swinging across and coming right for him. He draws his sword, and hopes they're all very bad at fighting.

As Phoenix sees them coming across, something else in her takes over. Her sword is out, and something deep and dark in her is making all the decisions. A short blonde man lands in front of her, and in the split second of his stumble without thinking Phoenix pushes her blade straight through his stomach and out the other side. He falls to the deck, his blood making the wood turn red. He looks at her just before he dies with utter disbelief, and for the first time in her life Phoenix watches the soul drain out of a person.

As she pulls her sword out of him with a sickening squelch, and sees the blood running down it, she understands what she has done. She has killed someone, this man, is dead by her own hand. She is horror struck for an everlasting instant, but into her field of vision comes another one of the Hawk's crew, bearing down on her fast.

Phoenix holds her bloodied sword ready, but something hits her very hard on the head from behind, and she knows no more of the battle. Matthew is locked in a fight with a dark and swarthy Greek, whose eyes suddenly glaze over and who falls to one side, revealing Jack standing behind him.

'Thought you needed some help lad.'

'Don't worry about me, where's Phoenix?'

'Last time I saw her she was buried up to the hilt in someone...'

Matthew looks around hurriedly, just in time to see Phoenix unconscious, being laid at the dark woman's feet over on the Hawk.

'My God, Captain, look!'

Jack looks, and it is all Matthew can do to stop him trying to throw himself over to the Hawk. Matthew hears the dark woman shriek an order for the crew to return, and in a flash the deck is empty of the Hawk's crew, and the ship itself is pulling away.

The deck is red with the blood of the dead and dying. There are maybe five or six dead from the other crew, and these are pitched overboard by the survivors from the Pearl. Among the Pearl's dead are Archie, his throat cut, the cook, a large fat man called Runt for some reason, and two of the deckhands.

There are also a number of injuries, but none of them serious. Jack half heartedly oversees the setting up of a 'hospital' under the guidance of one of the crew who, in a former life, was a navy surgeon. Matthew simply collapses beside one of the cannons, unable to move or even think.

'She's gone,' he says to himself, over and over. Then, for a strange fleeting time that seems to last at once eternity and the blink of an eye, he sees himself from above. Curled between two guns, his pathetic crumpled form, utterly useless. Phoenix kidnapped or captured, and him just sitting moping and being weak. He picks himself up, and goes to rescue the woman he loves.

***

Yay! Rescuing! Nothing like a good rescue mission. Please review for me, I'll be good and write more chapters!