I know, it took a while, sorry guys. Here's more! :)

Chapter 3

She found him outside, though she hadn't been searching for him.

He sat out on the steps out in front of the estate staring pensively out at the ocean.

"Mr. Turner?" she ventured, approaching him slowly from behind.

"Katherine," Will greeted her, scooting aside to allow her room to sit as well. "And you can call me Will."

She lowered herself slowly beside him, probably nervous about getting the seat of her dress dusty. His eyes returned to the horizon and he followed his gaze, looking out to it herself. "It's beautiful down here," she commented, breaking the surprisingly comfortable silence. "Certainly more than Boston."

"I take it you've never visited the Caribbean," he smiled, picking at a blade of grass and tossing it aside.

She let out a small laugh. "You sound surprised."

"Well, no, I just…" He laughed as well. "I would've thought Gin would have brought you down here before now."

She smiled and stared down at her hands. "I used to beg my mother to be near the sea when I was young."

"That doesn't surprise me," he admitted.

She  turned her head, facing him. "It doesn't?"

He shook his head, giving her a small, almost sheepish smile. "You strike me as the sailing type."

"What about you?" She turned her whole body toward him now. He had obviously sparked her interest.

"What about me?" he echoed, turning the question around.

"Are you the sailing type?" she clarified.

Surprisingly, he didn't take it as light-heartedly as she had intended it. He shifted forward again, effectively averting his gaze, the contemplative look returning. It took him a moment to reply.

"I suppose I am, yes."

It was all he said. But it implied so much more. Almost as if she had mentioned something he yearned for and had been forbidden to have. And it occurred to her for the first time that maybe she had.

Elizabeth seemed more inclined toward land, that much was easy to observe. It had never occurred to her that perhaps Will felt differently.

Against her better judgment, she pressed the issue. "But you're here."

He nodded. "I'm here."

"And…happy?"

A small smile played across his lips and he looked over at her again. "Are you hungry?" he asked suddenly.

"Well…" She glanced back at the doorway, then back at him. "I-"

"Let's go inside," he suggested, standing and brushing his pants off.

She stood as well, sensing that he had deliberately changed the subject. "Mr. Turner, you'll have to excuse me," she began to apologize. "Many people tell me I don't know when to quit, it's one of my faults, and I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine," he cut her off again, waving a hand at her dismissively. "Again, it doesn't surprise me."

Her brow furrowed in confusion and she opened her mouth, intending to ask what he had meant by that, but he took one of her arms and began to lead her back into the manor.

"And I told you," he said, "it's Will."

* * * * *

"McKinley's gonna be none too pleased when he finds out ye took 'is ship," Jack heard his companion warn him as he slowly got a feel for the foreign steering wheel.

"Commandeered, Gibbs," he corrected him, searching the vessel for loose knots and the like with experienced dark eyes.

"Whatever the term ye use, he'll see it the same way," Gibbs said, walking up the dais steps. "Ye stole from 'im. Now Jack, ye know me. I've stuck by ye this whole time, but I've no desire to have McKinley's crew chasin' us till the end of our days."

"Nor do I," Jack agreed, disinterested. He had more important things to concern himself with than McKinley's hot temper.

Barbossa for example.

Damn, he was getting too old for this. It had been months since he had had a lead as to the Pearl's whereabouts and he didn't have any great hopes that this venture would end up any different than the others had. His old first mate's crew would have disappeared by the time he reached the port, or they would have never truly been spotted to begin with.

And Jamaica, well…that was new. Barbossa usually tended to keep to the smaller islands, easier jobs. And the only place Jack could think of that could possibly be of any interest to him there was Port Royal.

About the last place Jack wished to chase him to.

Visiting Will and Elizabeth wasn't exactly number one on his To Do list either. He had slowly, and purposely detached himself from them over the years, as Elizabeth had received frequent letters from Gin in the earlier parts of her marriage. The last thing he had wanted to think about, let alone hear about back then was how well things were going for her back in London.

And now…well it was still the last thing he wanted to think about. And he rarely allowed himself to. Thinking about it at all brought all the pain of leaving her behind to the surface and that just wasn't good. Think of one memory, and they all came, so what was the point?

Though no matter how much he tried to ignore her, she was still there, always present in the back of his mind.

And since her departure, Jack had learned an important lesson: Anyone who said it was better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all had obviously never lost. He considered himself much better off before he had met her, when the sea had been his only great love.

"Jack?" Gibbs's voice broke into his reverie and he jerked slightly. He turned to the older sailor. "If we're goin', we should go."

Jack nodded. "Let's go then."

* * * * *

Before you guys ask (or possibly yell), no, that was NOT budding romance between Will and Katherine; that'd just be weird. COMMENT!!!!!!!!!!!