Disclaimer: I know an old lady who swallowed a disclaimer. I don't know why she swallowed a disclaimer. I guess she'll die. But at least she won't have any lawsuits brought against her for borrowing other people's characters.

Chapter 14: They Take It Away From Ye

Jack looked blearily from Elizabeth to Will to Gwen to AnaMaria and back. He decided he might try to get his feet under him again and reached for the table to steady himself as tried to stand.

"Jack Sparrow-"

"Gwen…" Jack interrupted, mimicking her scolding tone. "Gwen, uh… Gwendolyn." He pulled himself out of his chair, wavered, and then squinted at Elizabeth. "What're ye doin' here?"

Gwen latched onto his arm, dug a few coins out of his pocket and tossed them on the table for his drinks, and began tugging him toward the door before Elizabeth could respond to his slurred question. "They were looking for us," she explained as she dragged him along, speaking in low tones so only he could hear her, "but that damned friend of yours found them first." Then, turning to see how the Turners were managing with AnaMaria, she called more loudly, "All right, AnaMaria? Honestly, Jack, it's not even dark yet and with everything that's going on… Sometimes I wonder about you."

As she spoke she escorted him outside and hurried him off in the direction of the docks, not seeming to be very forgiving when he stumbled. AnaMaria followed close behind with the Turners. Will was eyeing her warily as she walked along beside them. Clearly, she'd had more sense than Jack (for what it was worth) by trying to limit her alcohol intake, but she still wobbled a bit too much to be able to pass as sober.

"Where're we goin', luv?"

Gwen grunted as he tripped on his own feet and leaned heavily against her while he tried to right himself and still keep up with her swift pace. "Murphy," she began, "has already left port-"

"Mufree? What's 'e-"

"--with Elizabeth's baby," Gwen went on, ignoring him. "Brant and Ben went to go see if he could head him off at the docks, but Murphy was already gone. And you've got some explaining to do." Speaking under her breath so her crude language wouldn't carry back to the Turners hurrying along behind them, she went on, "And you'd better know where to find the bastard, or I'll turn you into a soprano and let Elizabeth stew what's left over and spoon-feed it to you."

Jack looked at her in horror, trying to fathom what on earth he had done wrong to merit such a threat. (It was just a threat, right?) While he was distracted, he narrowly avoided running into an invisible obstacle, but ended up stumbling over another invisible obstacle a bit further on.

"Muh-free…" he tried again.

Gwen walked still faster as she turned him around a corner. They were coming in sight of the docks now. "You brought him into this, Jack, and he's gone after a child. You'd better be able to tell me what's going on. I'm not looking forward to explaining to Will and Elizabethexactly howwe know the man who just ran off with their infant. I at least want to be able to tell them why he did this."

Jack's eyes automatically flicked to the Pearl as soon as the ship's mainmast was in sight over the buildings. He stared wordlessly at it as they drew closer and closer to the docks. Then he thought perhaps he might tell Gwen, point out to her, that he hadn't quite expected things to work out this way, and that perhaps it was the Turners' fault for showing up when he hadn't planned for them, and also that it wasn't quite fair to blame him for someone else's crimes anyway, since he usually had more than a fair share of crimes all his own to deal with. He opened his mouth to tell her all this, but couldn't quite find the right words. "I want ye to have a bite of me pork," he said slowly.

"We'll have that talk when you've sobered up," Gwen said in the dry tone of one used to dealing with this sort of thing.

When Jack awoke, it was dark. Very dark. Past midnight, he guessed. He sat up carefully, testing his body carefully beforeputtinghimself to the strain of leaping to his feet.

After a few moments, he cleared himself for duty. A little worse for wear, and he needed to relieve himself, but no real hangover to speak of, thank heavens. He shuffled out of bed. Gwen hadn't bothered to undress him when she put him in bed, he saw, so all he had to do was pull on his boots.

Gwen. Where was she?

He found her just moments later, as he exited the cabin. She saw him emerge into the wane light of the few lanterns on deck assisted by a partial moon. She came down to meet him.

"We've lost him," she said. "Do you have any idea where he would be going?"

Jack just stared. Finally, he felt his pockets, searching for-- "Me compass," he said, presenting it to her.

A curious expression crossed her face as she took it from him.

"If Murphy's what ye're wantin' to find, it'll take ye to 'im," he said in such a logical way that it was clear he was surprised she hadn't thought of using it to navigate before. Probably, while he'd been sleeping off his rum, they'd just been using the ordinary compass Jack knew Gibbs kept hidden away to check their course from time to time.

Gwen bit her lip, frowning at herself for not thinking of it, but held the compass as though it had suddenly changed into something stranger than she had ever imagined. Jack waved her off, and she went up to the helm with it to set the course herself while he hurried off-- to put it delicately-- to take a leak.

Gwen thought about the compass as she returned to the helm. 'Sometimes it guides us, and sometimes it helps us to guide ourselves.' That was what Rufus had been repeating about the Romans' compass for the past few weeks. Jack's compass was obviously of the same make, though she wasn't sure she want to admit the connection.

She sighed. The Romans. They had been left behind, because neither Rufus nor Gaius had been present when Gwen and Jack and the Turners had bustled back onto the Black Pearl, ready to dash after Murphy and little Billy. AnaMaria had stayed behind to keep an eye out for the Romans while they left immediately to locate the kidnapped child. Elizabeth and Will, rather than troubling with their own smaller ship, had boarded the Pearl, along with Brant. The weary, fretful parents had finally gone to bed not more than half an hour earlier.

Once the night watch had tacked the sails back to compensate for the new angle of the wind with their changed course, and assured Gwen that they'd notify the captain immediately if they spotted so much as a flea on the horizon, Gwen finally left the poop deck. It was no good telling the solicitous men that she wasn't tired at all, but they'd been begging her for hours now-- though they thought they were being rather subtle about it-- to leave matters to them for the time being and go to bed.

Of course, she still wasn't going to bed yet. She intercepted Jack as he returned, refreshed, and ushered him straight back into their quarters.

"Talk," she said simply, pulling out his chair and jerking her finger down at it. Jack didn't like the idea of being issued orders, and so he simply stood, unmoving, refusing to take a seat. After a moment he suddenly seemed to decide that he would like to sit down, entirely of his own accord, and he settled himself comfortably. But when Jack still didn't say anything,Gwen said, "I'm not going to betray you, Jack, for heaven's sake; you can at least trust me. Just start with everything you know about Murphy. Besides the fact that you used to be shipmates," she added.

Jack hesitated. He thought perhaps he should be uneasy about the fact that Gwen had so casually diagnosed the reason for his reluctance to share too much of what he knew with anyone. But somehow, it seemed natural that Gwen would see right through his reasons for keeping tight lips on details.

Gwen's stern look told him he was taking too long considering. "I've never slapped you, Jack," she said pointedly after a moment. "Stop being so damned secretive and tell me something, for once in your life."

Jack's eyes narrowed at her, studying her to see if she was serious about the veiled threat she had just made. True, she'd never slapped him… when he slipped up and got her too angry with him, she had a wearisome tendency to launch more efficient attacks than just a light smack across the face. Jack didn't really think she would put him through such misery just because he wasn't sharing information with her, but he shifted in his chair and clasped his hands strategically over his lap nonetheless.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Jack could practically feel Gwen seething at him. For Gwen's part, if he only knew, however, she was desperately hoping that he would finally take the leap of confiding in her-- and also hoping that she hadn't overstepped her bounds in the casual and playful relations they usually shared.

"We, uh…" Jack fidgeted, raising a hand to rub his nose, scratch his jaw, and tug at his braided beard while he spoke. He didn't notice the look of relief on Gwen's face or the way she perched on the edge of her own chair to listen attentively; his eyes were fixed pointedly on the corner of his desk.

"AnaMaria picked up Murphy in Tortuga. We, uh… thought we might need some help, dealing with the, er… Romans and all, but Murphy's the only one she could turn up fast enough.

"He--" Jack cleared his throat-- "Murphy was always obsessed with legends. Ye probably noticed by now pirates know just about every legend that's ever been told. Well, he was always… fascinated in particular by these Lux tales, thought there was something more to 'em. Ye see what he's named his ship, the Lux Fortunaque Mundi. That's why he agreed to come, I know, because he was hoping to find the Lux. There--"

"How is it," Gwen interrupted, "that you and Murphy and AnaMaria all thought so much about these Roman ships? You had us chasing after them before you ever mentioned the word Lux," Gwen reasoned.

Jack frowned. "I might've entertained the idea, but I never really thought it was you," he explained upfront, "but I knew that, if the tales were at all true, there would be a Lux involved. It's the way the legends go." Jack's voice took on the distinctive timbre that he automatically assumed for spinning yarns, and he seemed to relax a bit more as well as heassumed the role of storyteller.

"There are historic records of Roman ships that got lost in storms. Bits of the Roman fleet, sometimes a dozen or so at once,sometimes even more. Not the best shipbuilders, were the Romans. But the way the legends tell it, they weren't all taken by storm. The legends, unlike the records,suggested that a lot of the storms, and supposed wrecks, were staged, unnatural.

"Supposedly, a Lux of the time would bring up winds and storms to separate ships from the rest of their squadrons. Then he cursed 'em, or blessed 'em, or put a spell on 'em, or something. Something to the tune of the ships and sailors serving the Lux for all time, or... somethin' like that. Supposedly, the Lux's plans to take over the Empire were found out by the Senate. The Lux was quietly assassinated, and many of the cursed sailors eventually returned home and lived out their lives on Roman soil and were buried, like any other men.

"Reason it's more legend than history is that the sailors couldn't ever prove-" he gestured dramatically--"that they had sailed on the ships that had gone missing… because the ships themselves were as cursed as they were, they would come and go, here one moment, but invisible in the very next.

"They couldn't prove to the army who they were, and their families, for the most part, didn't listen to their tales. It was terrible bad luck to speak ill of the Lux, and the general public didn't know of the assassination, so the sailors' crazy stories were largely ignored, out of fear if nothing else. Which is another reason why the legends aren't so well known themselves."

Gwen didn't say anything when Jack paused to collect his thoughts.

"Obviously, with a legend like that, people who like to tell it, people like Murphy, believe that someday another Lux will come back and call up the cursed sailors and try to build his own Empire. That's why AnaMaria and I were a bit… concerned. Just a bit."

"That still doesn't quite explain why Murphy kidnaps our friend's baby and then flees Rome for the open seas."

"Unless…" Jack began pensively. "Well, Gaius is… well, there's him," he said, sounding as though he were cutting himself off. But he continued easily enough, "Then there's Rufus, who sincerely wants nothing more than to use the L-- to use you to defeat this 'enemy' of Rome, whom he's never actually mentioned by name. I'm not convinced Rufus really knows what's going on. And Murphy probably wouldn't mind ruling a chunk of the old Roman Empire himself, which the Lux would naturally help him win. He always wanted to be a governor, some weird fantasy of his.

"Now, I know Murphy went to meet someone in Rome-- leaving me 'n' AnaMaria like that, he had to 'ave been meeting someone. Let's say it was one of our Romans, doesn't matter which. Say they're having a conversation about your grandfather. No one else knows about the connection, or the truth, with you and him but those two. Say Murphy just heard about 'Bill' and thought 'Bootstrap Bill,' and then went for his heir," he suggested with a doubtful look on his face.

"Those are a lot of if's, Jack," Gwen said. "Too many things that don't add up. Especially how he knew where to find Billy Turner when even you didn'tknow the Turners had come looking for us yet.Or how he overlooked Will Turner, the obviously more useful, grown heir of Bootstrap Bill."

"He's lucky?" he suggested. "Which reminds me, why are the Turners here?"

"Something about being boring and predictable wasn't working so well."

"Ah... Well, no matter how it happened, we've got Romans wanting to use ye to take over the world, and we've got Murphy wanting to use ye, only he doesn't know it's you he wants yet, to take over the world. The Turners wanted to go along for another ride, but they have terrible timing and even worse luck. Does that about cover it?"

"No," Gwen said, suddenly and sharply. "What is Murphy up to?" she asked, as though speaking to herself.

"What are ye talking about?"

"Look, if it's true that Murphy did talk to the Romans, then he probably knows what they told you and me-- that the entirety of the rest of the Roman fleet will be arriving in Rome in a matter of days. If Murphy really wanted to use me, or the Lux, to control the fleet… then why are we chasing him away from Rome?"

Jack paused to think about this. "Unless he's just leading us on a wild goose chase to get us out of the way," he suggested, but that didn't quite seem the kind of the thing Murphy would do. The Murphy he knew would prefer to be in on the action, rather than serving as a sidelined decoy. He frowned. Glancing up, he finally met Gwen's eyes for the first time since he had begun talking.

From the look in her eyes, he almost expected her to point out that she had given him insight into Murphy's motives, had pointed out that he must have some other motive than Jack had thought. He almost expected her to gloat andsuggest that he should have turned to her as a confidante long ago. But she didn't say anything at all for a very long moment.

Finally, she moved to stand up. "So it's just a misunderstanding. Do you think the child is in any danger with Murphy until we can get to him?"

Jack shrugged. "He wouldn't intentionally do anything to it, I don't think."

Gwen sighed. "But we'll probably end up having to explain the whole misunderstanding to him when we show up to take Billy back." She bit her lip. "I wonder if we could offer to trade information. You know, we could tell him we know who the Lux really is, if he can tell us what he wants from me… or, from the Lux. Actually… if he's been talking to Rufus or Gaius, he might be able to tell us something about them and what they're really up to."

"Ye're going to tell him about yourself in exchange for information… information from someone who's spent most of his life in legends and fairy tales?" Jack asked, watching her pace back and forth as she thought.

"Fairies don't enter into it," she said flatly. "Do you think I'm a legend, Jack?" she asked suddenly then, her tone very serious. "Do you believe all of this that everyone keeps saying about Lux this and Lux that?"

Jack didn't answer asthe seconds ticked by. When he finally spoke, he didn't answer her question at all. "Don't tell Murphy, Gwen. I didn't tell him about ye, and I won't. I don't want you to, either."

Gwen stared at him in surprise at the odd request. "Do you think he's dangerous?"

"No," Jack answered slowly, "it's… when ye tell somebody about somethin' important, they take it away from ye."

"Jack, even if I could do half the things everyone wants me to be able to do, no one could just take those abilities away from me," she reasoned, frowning at his odd plea. "But maybe… if I could do whatever they all want, they would be content." Gwen paused, then said in a rush, as though she'd been wanting to say it for a while, "I'm tired of legends, Jack. I don't want to be a legend. I'm sick of it. Whatever it takes to get Billy back to the Turners, settle Murphy, and settle the Romans, I'll do it. Anything that will make them all leave me alone. If I have to tell them I'm the Queen of England, and--count to forty-two backward! Can't you just try to be compassionate for once, just act like you care about me, about what I want?"

Jack stared. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

Gwen swallowed. She'd crossed the line, she knew. The invisible line that they both avoided. Caring. It wasn't discussed. It wasn't even alluded to. They were partners of sorts; an intimate type of friend, perhaps. Whatever they were, though, it wasn't to be spoken of. It just wasn't. They were pirates, and pirates don't waste their time caring too deeply about anything other than just enjoying sailing, partying, drinking, and having fun. Anything else a pirate cared about wasn't important.

Jack clenched his jaw. "I forbid you," he finally ground out, "to tell Murphy anything about the Lux. You will act like ye don't even know what it is if ye're ever around him. I will get the Turner's whelp back."

Gwen's face flushed with anger. "Don't you give me orders in that tone of voice, Jack Sparrow! I'm not your... your bloody wife to command as you see fit."

"I'm your captain," he spat back, "and ye'll do as I say."

"Well, maybe I don't want you to be my captain then. Maybe I'll go sail with the Turners when we get back to their ship in Rome. They will understand."

"You don't understand," Jack growled, rising from his chair.

"Understand what, Captain?"

Sounding as though it were something urgently important, he repeated, "When ye tell somebody about somethin' important, they take it--"

"This isn't something they can take away from me. Good God, Jack. Just because you messed up a long time ago, telling the wrong people about your precious Aztec treasure, you think people can just go around stealing anything. Well, they've already taken my peace of mind, and I haven't said a word. You're the one who told the damned Romans I was the one they wanted, and I'll tell whoever the hell I want, anything I want to tell them. I don't care what they want me to do, I just want my bloody life back."

If that sudden outburst wasn't enough to get Jack's attention, the door slamming behind her as she fled his quarters was.

He picked up the nearest object-- a glass of water, which she'd apparently had waiting on him for when he awoke-- and threw it at the door, spraying the room with water and shards of glass. Swearing under his breath, he glanced around the room. There were the shelves where he had once kept his collection of "false colors," his flags from various countries, which the Pearl could fly at a whim. Gwen's spare clothes were now delegated to that shelf, folded neatly; the flags had been relocated to his trunk. The trunk which she'd cleaned out and organized for him. He glanced at the bed, disorderly from where he'd only just gotten out of it, but with clean linens and the blankets that she insisted on airing out from time to time. On his desk, his hat rested where she had respectfully lain it.

Jack sighed heavily. Damn.