Title: The Journey Home

Author: Jaina Kenobi

Rating: PG

Summary: Elizabeth is kidnapped and in order to get home she must rely on a familiar stranger.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates or anything associated with it (though if whoever does own it wants to get rid of it, I'm very willing to take it off his hands...). I'm not making any money off of this story (because if I were I would be in the Caribbean, not posting a fanfic about it).

Prologue: 4 years after The Curse of the Black Pearl, Port Royal, night.

Elizabeth Turner smiled as she laid her baby girl in the bassinet. Such a sweet face, she thought happily. Just like her father. The thought of her husband, Will, brought another smile to her face, albeit a sad one. Will was off on business in London, and he wasn't scheduled to come back for another week and a half. It wasn't often that he was forced to go--only once every year or two--but Elizabeth hated it. He had left the day after his daughter was born, and he'd only held the baby once. "You should name her Grace," he'd told her. "I always liked that name." He and Elizabeth had agreed that it was her turn to name the baby, since Will got to name their three-year-old son, Jack. But she had made it clear that she was open to suggestions, and Will took advantage of that and suggested as many names as he could think of.

Truth be told, Elizabeth had intended to name the girl Charlotte, after the mother Elizabeth had barely known, but she found that she liked Grace too, so she had finally settled on Grace Charlotte. Will seemed to like it, judging by his short letters home.

It was late at night, and Elizabeth was exhausted. She and Will didn't have enough money to keep a full-time nurse, and her father was loathe to assist them so openly after the obvious breach of protocol she had committed, so Elizabeth found herself up at all hours of the night, whenever Grace decided she was hungry. Elizabeth didn't begrudge her daughter the attention, but it would be wonderful when she finally started sleeping through the night.

Elizabeth started to shuffle back to bed when an open window across the hallway caught her attention. Sighing, she walked over to it and started to close it, but something caught her attention. It was eerily quiet--even for as late as it was--and she though she could feel a strange vibration in the air. Something didn't seem right. She looked up and saw a cloud move slowly over the moon. Pirates? she wondered. But the cloud moved on, and an insect started chirping somewhere nearby; the moment had passed. Frowning, Elizabeth shut the window and trudged back to bed.

She was almost asleep when a shrill scream shattered the silence. Gunshots and the boom of distant cannons followed. Hurriedly, she threw on a light robe and rushed to check on the baby. Grace was crying, but safe.

A sound at the door made her gasp and whirl. "Who's there?" she demanded.

"Mommy?" Jack called, his voice trembling. "Mommy, what's going on?"

Elizabeth hurried over to her son and picked him up, holding him tightly. "It's okay, Jack," she whispered. "Nothing's going to happen to you. But you have to do exactly as I tell you, all right?"

He nodded solemnly. "Yes, Mommy."

"Okay." Elizabeth paused, casting about wildly for something--anything--that might save her little family. The screams were getting louder, and closer. She could hear more guns going off somewhere in the distance. She was running out of time.

"All right, Jack. Here's what we're going to do. You are going to protect your sister, okay? You have to be brave, and you have to protect her. Do you remember how I taught you to hold her?"

The little boy nodded. "Always support her head, and be very careful so I don't break her."

Elizabeth nodded and smiled. "Right. So we're going to make a bed for Grace and a bed for you, and you are going to make sure that Grace doesn't cry. If you have to, let her suck on your finger. You can't make a sound, do you hear? Not a sound."

"Yes, Mommy."

"Okay, good. You're going to hide in my closet. Let's get some blankets and make you two a bed."

It didn't take much time for them to make a pile of blankets and get the two settled in. Elizabeth was getting frantic with fear at the approaching invaders, but at least she knew that her children were relatively safe. Jack was a good boy, and he understood that when Mommy was this serious, she was to be obeyed without question.

"Good night, darlings," she whispered. "I love you."

"Mommy? Will you come back for us?" Jack whispered back.

Elizabeth tried to smile reassuringly. "Of course, darling. I promise, I will come back. But if I take a long time, remember that only Daddy is allowed to take you out of there. Daddy or Grampa. Okay?"

"'Kay. Night, Mommy. Love you."

"Love you too, sweetheart. Goodnight."

She shut the door and straightened up the room, all the while conscious of the ever-increasing mayhem approaching her home. She took one last look around the room, making sure it looked deserted. It would have to do. She rushed into the hall and grabbed a sword off the wall, thanking God she'd married a former blacksmith and thinking apprehensively about the last time she'd tried to use a sword she'd pulled a sword off a wall... but there was no time for that. She had to get to her father's house. She had to get help--and tell somebody where her kids were, just in case.

Out in the street, the town was the epitome of pandemonium. Elizabeth hadn't seen Port Royal this chaotic since the Black Pearl raided it four years ago. She bit her lip and hurried into the fray. I've got to get to the mansion, she thought. That's it. Just to the mansion.

But before she could get three steps out of the drive, her world went black.