A/N Quick update after I left it for over a month last time. Not much happens in this chapter, just the continuation of Dora into madness, but everything's going to come to a head soon. Anyway please read and review.

A big thank-you to everyone who read and reviewed my last chapter!! It's really encouraging.

Chapter Thirty

That night I was too scared to sleep. The dark terrified my senses, and every time my candle blew out, I quivered in fear and hurried to light it. Of all the nights I needed Jack by my side, and he wasn't here. When I shut my eyes I could imagine the billowing curtains around my bed, closing in on me, just like a shadowy white figure. The room seemed so empty without Jack, and yet my mind saw shadows everywhere, even when I held my eyes tight shut, I could see them getting closer.

I did not sleep a wink that night, I was scared in case Annamaria visited my dreams. When morning broke, I stumbled groggily out of bed, eager to leave the cabin as quickly as possible. At least when I was round others, she could not torture me so.

Gibbs stared in me surprise as I threw myself down on the deck. "Not sleepin' well?" He remarked, shrewdly.

I looked up at him through sleepy eyes, and shook my head.

"Somethin' playin' on your conscience no doubt." He murmured as he walked away, leaving his words to haunt me.

Was the murder of Annamaria playing on my conscience? Was I imagining these things because I felt guilty? Imagining? But it had felt so real. No, last night she was really there, I felt her arm sweep coldly through my body. She was there, I saw her. She must have been. I saw her.

My stomach rumbled defiantly, but I couldn't eat, instead I sat and watched the activity on deck, as Jack's crew scurried like rats to do his biding. Not because they were scared of him, but because they respected him. Their number had somewhat depleted due to the fight, and some of them had been sent over to man the captured ship. We were heading for Tortuga now, where Jack could find a proper crew to man his new ship. I heard a whisper amongst the men that Jack was going to ask an old friend by the name of Will Turner to take over as captain from Mubbs.

"Nah," sighed Gibbs. "He'd ne'er leave his misses, and it's frightful bad luck to have a woman on board."

If Annamaria had still been alive, I reckon the captaincy would have passed to her. By such an occurrence I would have been rid of her, and it would have been just Jack and I, again. How it was supposed to be. Instead I had ruined it all.

"We'll be in Tortuga soon." Jack said, softly.

I pushed myself up from the deck, and stood beside him. The terrors that had haunted my heart that morning vanished as he spoke. Just to hear his voice, talking to me, soothingly, was enough.

I smiled, warmly at him, the first time I had smiled in days.

"Good, after all we are low on supplies." I couldn't believe, after nearly a week of cold shoulder from the man I loved, when he finally started talking to me, I replied with drivel about food supplies. I blushed slightly and turned away. I could tell he was uncomfortably by the way he held his hands.

"Mubbs will be loathe to leave the ship."

"He'll return to the Pearl, that's good for anyone." He said, his hand, lingering on my shoulder.

"Jack, I…"

"Jack!" Gibbs yelled. "Cap'n!"

Jack's hand left my shoulder, and with a grin he turned and strolled over to Gibbs.

"Yeah?"

"The 'Fantasma' has raised it's flag, they're signalling to us, we may be in for a spot o' bother." He told him.

Jack sighed, and took one last glance at me, before resuming his place at the wheel. "That Mubbs, at least when we reach Tortuga I can find a half decent captain."

Gibbs didn't reply, he didn't dare form an argument in the defence of his friend. Maybe they were all scared of Jack, after all.

The 'spot o' bother' turned out to be a group of sharks paroling the waters. Jack swore loudly at the ignorance of Mubbs, and the time he had wasted. I had never heard Jack slag off one of his crew so vehemently before. But he had changed so greatly in the space of one week.

"Death can do funny things to a person, Theodora." My mother once said. I think it was after my grandmother had passed away through sheer old age, and my father had slapped me sharply across the face, sending me reeling. It was the first time he had raised his hand in anger.

I remembered that phrase as I watched Jack at the wheel, praying for a swift wind to carry us across the seas to Tortuga.

It is funny how old phrases and words come back to you, fancy thinking of my mother at a time like that. There I was, standing on a ship where the vast majority of occupants hated me, my previous lover thought me a cold blooded killer (if he thought of me at all), and I was scared to close my eyes because of Annamaria who threatened the shadows of my mind. And yet I recalled my mother, a rather insignificant presence in my life, who prompted this entire epic with Jack when she burnt to death. Callous? Yes, I suppose I am, but we are what life makes us.

That night, I fell asleep from pure fatigue, I was so tired, that my eyes closed on their own accord, and I could do nothing to prevent the darkness swallowing me. Once more I was alone, Jack did not come to me, and I didn't bother asking him too. If I didn't think about it, I could forget that Jack no longer cared for me.

For a long time, she stood in the corner of the room, not moving. The wind through the porthole, swept her trousers round her ankles. The gale pulled at her shirt, as she stood with her back to me defiantly. I sat on the bed unable to breath, I wanted to cry for help, but she had claimed my voice. And as she slowly turned round, I opened my mouth to scream, but I was as silent as Cotton.

She walked slowly up to the bed, and stopped at the end, her transparent hand resting on one of the wooden posts. She smiled, nastily, and her eyes gleamed with evil in the moonlight. It was the only part of her that seemed truly alive. But she's dead, I struggled to remind myself.

"Dora. . ." She said, softly, her lips didn't move, and the voice seemed to come from somewhere else. "Dora. . ."

The mocking voice seemed to evoke the madness within me, and a picked up the metal candle stick by my bed. The flame had long since been distinguished, but it wasn't for light I picked it up, but for a weapon. She cackled softly, but again her lips didn't move. The laughter seemed to be coming from elsewhere.

My heart was beating so fast that I felt faint, and my grip on the candle stick loosened. The figure swept through the bed, and came to a stop before me. I swung out with the candlestick, it passed straight through her crystalline body.

As my voice finally returned to me, I screamed at the top of my lungs, it was so loud it scorched my throat. Annamaria continued to walk, she passed through me, and through the wall of the cabin, without a trace.

I didn't tell any one what happened that night, Jack would think I had gone mad. But I knew what I saw, and I knew it was real. I'd have to get off this ship. I couldn't stay here. I had to get away from the Pearl. Every second, even in my waking hours, I could hear that haunting voice, calling my name.

"Dora Sanchez…"

A/N So how was it? By the way ' el fantasma' is Spanish for 'The Ghost' the name of the other ship. Thanks for reading, please review.