Will looked down at Jack's prone body for a moment, guilt pricking the fingers holding the oar. "Sorry, Jack. But you said it yourself: we're not on the same side."

He swallowed hard as he reached down to brush a matted lock of hair from Jack's face, hoping he hadn't swung too hard. Since Jack had not seen fit to let Will in on whatever plan he'd made, if any, Will felt no obligation to take that plan into account. He was through playing by someone else's rules.

Still, he had no wish for harm to come to the man with whom he'd just spent a long, wonderful, entirely perplexing night. He dragged Jack behind a boulder, where he ought to be quite safe until he awoke. Not even Jack would be stupid enough to go stumbling into Barbossa's midst if that awakening came too soon. He'd be furious, no doubt about that, but since Will intended to return for him once they'd gotten clear of the Pearl, there was no reason for Jack to hold it against him.

He could just catch the tail end of some kind of scuffle as he found a bit of unoccupied beach and slipped into the shallow water. Barbossa knocked the girl in the head and she tumbled down, the coin falling beside her. Will swam a bit faster, knowing how hard Barbossa could hit when he had a reason. He was arguing with some of the men when Will popped his head back up again, but he took no notice of their words because he'd gotten to Elizabeth. She woke at his touch and he quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. Holding a finger to his lips, he tried to impart that he meant her no harm without saying a word. It must have worked, because she nodded and let him pull her under.

It was clear when they made their way to the slippery shore that she wanted to start asking questions, but she held her tongue all the way out of the cave. Will started to pull her into the boat, but she shook her head.

"Wait a moment," she whispered, backing away.

Will bit back a frustrated yell. "We have to –" he hissed, but Elizabeth was already busy gathering up the oars the pirates had left behind. Surprised at her shrewdness, he quickly bent to help her dump them into the Interceptor's boat.

When they were a safe distance away from the cave mouth, Will paddling and Elizabeth sitting at the other end hugging her knees, he made a belated introduction. "My name is Will Turner, and I've –"

"I know who you are." She peered at him intently, pressing her full lips together. "You're the boy we pulled out of the water."

"Yes," said Will, relieved that she remembered, even more relieved that he remembered now, looking at her. The freckles were mostly gone and her hair had been lightened by the Caribbean sun, but she was the same somber-eyed little girl who'd knelt by him when he was twelve. "And you're Elizabeth Swann."

Her smile was a bit like Jack's, sudden and sincere.

"You aren't hurt, are you?" he asked as he rowed, glancing behind his shoulder to see the hull of the Interceptor drawing nearer.

Elizabeth shook her head, attempting to wring out the skirt of her old-fashioned dress. It proved too water-logged for her to climb up on her own; Will had to help her, heaving upwards while the boat tipped dangerously beneath his feet. He finally dragged himself on deck, breathing hard, to find Elizabeth shrinking away from Gibbs. The man's eyes fell to him immediately.

"Hey boy, where be Jack?" was the gruff question. Will took Elizabeth by the elbow, resisting the urge to glance backwards.

Elizabeth straightened, turning eagerly to Will. "Jack? Jack Sparrow? Where is he?"

"He fell behind." He shouldered past the pirates, not wanting to see what they'd make of this, taking Elizabeth with him. The cut on her hand needed to be tended. He led her below, picking up the bottle of rum Jack had left half-drunk on top of a barrel, trying not to remember how his fingers had circled around the cool neck, the way he had held to Will in the night, as if afraid of spilling him from the hammock like the liquor might be spilled...

Elizabeth hissed when he doused the wound with rum, but didn't pull away. Instead she watched him with wary eyes. "Jack is with you?"

"Was," said Will shortly, setting the bottle aside.

"You left him behind!" Elizabeth accused, her eyes hot and angry.

There were many things she obviously didn't understand and Will was not accustomed to explaining himself to women, but he gave it a try because Jack had spoken of her with respect. "We can return for him later. At the moment, I would prefer to put as much distance between this ship and the Black Pearl as possible." He bound her hand with a strip of linen, and this time she did flinch. "Sorry," he said with a rueful smile, tucking the end of the linen into the layers. "Sailor's hands – I know they're rough."

"You're a sailor?" she said, leaning back and crossing her ankles.

Will nodded. "I sail with the Pearl." He cleared his throat, wondering at how that might seem to her after what she'd been through, and wondering if it could even be called true. "Or I did, at any rate."

"I know that. They spoke of you – wondered where you were. I –" She glanced down at her lap, toying with her bandage. "I believe they kept me alive because they thought we were related."

Will raised his eyebrows. "Why would they think that?"

"I gave my name as Turner and told them I was a maid," she said, fiddling with a shred of lace on her sleeve. "Do you remember – no, I suppose you wouldn't, seeing as how you were unconscious at the time – when they took you from my father's cabin, there was another girl with me. Her mother had worked as my mother's maid, so we brought her from England with us. One of the dark-skinned ones said he remembered us both, and thought I must be a sister to you."

He touched a hand to his temple, where it habitually ached when he tried to remember that day. "I...I think I do recall her. Somebody's teeth were chattering."

Elizabeth smiled, her eyes unfocused in memory. "I was leaning over the side to look at dolphins and I started to fall. Estrella pulled me back and in the process went over herself. I assume they thought she - I - had been rescued along with you"

"But I never spoke of a sister," said Will, frowning as he tried to puzzle it out.

"The little fat one who came to the house for me – always had a tall, skinny bloke with a false eye at his side –"

"Pintel," said Will absently. "And Ragetti."

She looked at him rather coldly. "He said that he'd sailed with someone called Bill on the...the Ravens Hollow, I believe, and that the wife of the man was soon to have a second child."

"Yes," said Will, "but the babe was stillborn." He tapped the wooden table triumphantly. "And Bill – my father – probably would never have mentioned it again. Jack certainly didn't know before I told him. But then why would they take me and not her?"

Elizabeth's cheeks turned flushed beneath her fledgling tan, for no reason that he could discern. "They thought you had the medallion on the chain around your neck. I had put a cross there instead." When Will blinked, surprised at this revelation, her lips grew thin and upset. "Don't tell me you lost it. It was my mother's and I never meant to give it to you, really, only lend it –"

"I'm sorry," said Will honestly, "I don't remember it at all. Why didn't I have the medallion?"

Her color deepened even more as she reached into the bodice of her dress, drawing the bright coin out with a broken gold chain trailing beneath it. The sight of it sent a curious jolt to Will, as it had when he was a child. It was the only thing his father had really given him – he'd sent money, but never gifts. Will had meant to treasure it when it arrived just after his eleventh birthday.

"I took it," said Elizabeth, looking properly sheepish. "I was afraid you were a pirate."

Will reached for the token and she dropped it in his palm, where it lay heavy and warm from the heat of her body. "I was," he said, turning it over and staring at how the carving caught the light. "Still am."

"But not like them," said Elizabeth, her eyes wide and serious. "You and Jack – you aren't the same manner of pirates as Barbossa's men."

Her words struck too close to home. "I am not the same as Jack Sparrow," he snapped, slamming the coin down on the table. Elizabeth jumped, her face flickering with fear before she narrowed her eyes and gave him an aristocrat's sneer.

"No, you're not," she retorted. "Jack would never have abandoned a friend to certain danger."

"I didn't –" Will began, but Elizabeth gathered her skirts in one hand and stalked off.

Sighing, Will looked down at the gold skull leering up at him. In a way, she was right – but in a way he had been right too, because what proof did he have that Jack would stay true to him? It had only been sex, albeit multiple bouts of mind-numbingly incredible sex – and a look he thought he'd caught, a gleam in Jack's eye the previous night when Will had been so deep inside him and Jack had seemed to be inviting him deeper still.

But then he remembered Jack's words in the morning, and why he thought he'd attributed too much to that look, which had most likely been just a maneuver calculated to keep Will obedient to Jack's whims...

His thoughts ran like that for some time, making him ignorant of everything around him until finally the sounds of shouting and the Interceptor's guns being run out roused him.

Sprinting up the hatch to the deck, he saw Elizabeth conferring with Anamaria and Gibbs. Jack had said she had a good head for sailing and it must be true, if they were nodding along with what she was saying. He pulled himself up onto the rail to get a better look at the Pearl. The Interceptor was outpacing her, which was something he hadn't seen in a good long while. He almost allowed himself a moment of pride in the ship he and Jack had commandeered. She was a worthy vessel, but he knew the Pearl and she had no equal.

Sure enough, there were the sweeps. He imagined he could hear Barbossa bellowing even now, and he stopped Marty from shoving a gun overboard. "We're going to need that."

Elizabeth proved as capable as Jack had claimed and he offered up his experience with their pursuer (much as he hated firing on her), but in the end the battle was decided before it begun. The Interceptor was outweighed and outgunned.

But Will was damned – damned if he was going to let Barbossa have his life back this easily, not after what he'd done to Will's. It took Elizabeth to remind him, but once she did, the medallion was the only thing on his mind.

Until the hold began to flood with him trapped inside it, of course.

Stupid monkey, thought Jack over and over as he scrambled across the fallen mast in pursuit of the thing. Bloody stupid monkey, with its grabby little paws and its screech and the way it had gone right to the gold. And bloody stupid Elizabeth, for letting the medallion out of her sight, and bloody stupid Will for knocking Jack over the head with an oar, and bloody stupid...

...himself.

"Why thank you, Jack," said Barbossa grandly, accepting the coin from his pet.

Jack simpered up at him, boiling inside. "You're welcome."

"Not you, we named the monkey Jack," said Barbossa in his rolling, oily tones, and the creature flashed its little teeth at him.

Of course he had. Jack slit his eyes at Barbossa's back as the turncoat roared to his crew, "Gents, our hope is restored!" He grinned along with their cheers, silently debating whether he would shoot Barbossa in the heart or the head.

He soon found himself being manhandled by two former crewmates who had, if they'd been able to expire, would have done so immediately upon catching their own scents. He was relieved to see the lass still alive, not to mention snarling at her snickering captors like a she-tiger. But the boy was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they'd taken him below for safekeeping, or perhaps he'd gone willingly after all.

He was mourning the imminent destruction of the Interceptor (though perversely pleased that it had not been the Pearl) when he saw Elizabeth's eyes widen. "Will," she breathed, ducking under the ropes.

Jack whipped his head around just in time to see the ship ignite, blowing pieces of herself into the air with an ear-splitting boom. Something cold lodged in his throat before thunking down into the pit of his stomach, chilling every bone in his body.

Elizabeth flung herself at Barbossa, shrieking. Jack hardly heard whatever he said before throwing her to a knot of men, so busy was he staring at the burning wreckage of the Interceptor.

It's not much of a home, but it's the only one I've got, Will was saying in his head, and I'm quite familiar with Tortuga, thank you – archly because Jack was trying to show off while he wove his way through the crowds. The boy should have been left behind there, even if it would have destroyed any shred of trust he'd ever had in his fellow man. In Jack. Though he had, apparently, never trusted him to begin with, Jack couldn't quite bring himself to be angry with the boy any longer. He couldn't quite bring himself to breathe, in fact.

"Barbossa!" And Jack thought that Will should indeed be angry with the man, even if he could only act on his feelings in Jack's own mind. Elizabeth had stopped screaming and everybody was looking at a man pointing a pistol at the cap – at Barbossa, he'd never be captain to Jack – and it was Will, it was, Jack wasn't seeing things like he had on the island. Dripping wet and trying not to shiver and the sexiest, most brain-addling thing Jack had ever set eyes on.

Barbossa had gone still except for one fingertip stroking the head of his monkey. "Well, well," he said, looking at him in such a way that Jack knew in an instant he was never going to believe in Will's loyalty ever again. Which was fitting, actually, since loyalty to the man standing before him appeared to be the furthest thing from Will's mind.

"'S our Will!" cried Ragetti, not quite getting the way the temperature around Barbossa had dropped by about sixty degrees. "Come back t' us!"

Will didn't look at him, didn't look at anywhere except Barbossa. He stood tall, with his head high and the pistol neatly cocked. "Not quite, I'm afraid."

"The pup shows his teeth a' last," said Barbossa, looking distantly amused. "Too bad he's forgotten we can't die, not from a single paltry shot nor an'thing else."

"You can't die," Will allowed with a dip of his head. He backed up and jumped onto the rail, holding the pistol under his throat. "I can."

There were disturbed murmurs among the pirates. Elizabeth gasped, struggling under the hands holding her. Barbossa regarded Will calmly and, if it was possible, even more coldly.

"What's in yer head, boy?" he wanted to know. Jack made a mental note never to call Will that again, at least in not that tone, provided they all got out of this alive.

"Negotiations," said Will flatly. "I'll be your errand boy as I've been for eight years, but it will cost you."

Barbossa narrowed his yellow eyes for a moment, considering, then said, "Name yer terms."

Jack brought his hands together in a steeple, an unconscious holdover from childhoood even though he hadn't put stock in prayer for many years. Will knew the man, would have to know that he kept his word to the letter – and that his spelling wouldn't necessarily be to the other party's standards.

"The girl goes free," said Will, glancing at Elizabeth. His eyes turned to Jack next, who couldn't help but be caught within them even though he could see Barbossa noticing, practically hear the wheels grinding in his head. It was a bad, bad idea to give that man any sort of leverage, and Will had done exactly that with the way he looked at Jack.

"And the crew," said Will, "the crew are not to be harmed." His nostrils flared as he looked back at Barbossa. "Give me your word that you'll honor the agreement."

Barbossa held a hand to where his heart might have been, once upon a time. "Ye have it, William, as always."

Will smiled grimly as he stepped down. Too soon, thought Jack, much too soon for that.

Sometimes he really hated being right all the time.