Disclaimer: It's mine, all mine! 'laughs maniacally as Michael Eisner waltzes up and swats her with a rolled up newspaper.' Ouch. Okay, everything BUT the characters from PoTC are mine…happy now, Mike?

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Horizon

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"You must choose, my dear child. You alone. And you must choose now."

Andrea gazed at Rum in despair. "How can I leave him now, Rum? After I thought I'd lost him?" She looked at the pirate who was gazing at her solemnly. Andrea chewed her bottom lip, building up the courage to ask him one question. A single question that she needed answered before she willingly threw her life one way or another. Soul-bound or no, she needed to know.

"Jack...do you love me?"

Jack inhaled quickly, the sound made all too sharp by the surrounding silence. "Can you not tell by the way I look at you, lass? I spent my entire life seeking the next horizon, the next grand adventure. It wasn't until I met you that I realized I'd found what I'd spent my entire life searching for."

His hand stretched towards her face, his fingertips straining to brush her cheek. "Treasure's treasure, luv. But you are far more precious to me than silver or gold ever were."

As Andrea and Jack's gazes were once more locked in longing, Rum sighed. "Shall I take it that is your decision, then?"

Andrea nodded slowly, never taking her eyes from Jack's face. "I can't help it, Rum. I can't leave him. Not now. Not ever."

"So be it. Andrea, all you need do is step in the water. Jack, you might want to grab her first..." Andrea willingly stepped into the dark blue waves, Jack leaping out to catch her as her legs folded. Andrea shivered violently until Jack had reseated them both in the dinghy. Andrea felt...odd. Somehow empty, and yet more whole than she'd ever been in her life. Jack kissed her passionately, and in a moment that seemed to last forever she knew she had made the right decision. Wherever they went from here, they would go together.

And nothing would ever tear them apart.

"Children." Rum smiled as a feminine form stepped out of the woods. "Were we ever that young?" Rum's apparent age peeled off of him even as his companion finished the short walk to him. "Giving him the clues he needed to soul-bind her in particular was a nice touch, though you could have warned me first, Elizabeth. It would have made my task much easier."

The dark blonde laughed, throwing her arms around him. "Oh honestly, Will, when have you ever preferred an 'easy task'? And why did you call Jack a 'foul apparition'? Wasn't that taking things a bit too far?"

Will shrugged. "I had to keep him from realizing who I was." He sighed in contentment, gazing at his now-distant friend even as his own soul-mate wrapped her arms around him. "I'm glad to see him finally complete, dear. But now I have to go back and take care of a few things..."

When Andrea glanced back at the shore, she felt a pang when she saw that Rum was gone. "I didn't say good-bye." she murmured, and Jack wrapped his arms even more tightly around her. "At this stage of things love, good-byes are never final. More likely than not, we'll not have seen the last o' your Rum."

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Rum, or rather, William Turner, awoke back in the hospital. Nurses scurried about the place as Andrea's heart monitor went into a flat-line. He knew they would be unsuccessful at rousing her - her soul was long gone.

He lay down in contentment. His job was finally done, his task complete. He just wished his memory would have returned sooner, but such was always the way when one inhabited an animal's body.

His heart-rate slowed, and pleasant thoughts of Elizabeth filled his head. They'd spent so many years meeting in passing and now they would finally enjoy their rest together.

As his eyes drifted shut his heart stopped...

As the doctor pulled the sheet over Andrea's face, he attempted to wake the sleeping cat. Only to pause, feel for breath, and pull the sheet over the still tabby as well. "Poor thing must have gone when she did." he muttered. "Nurse, someone needs to call Officer Norton. And find out from him who in her family needs to be contacted."

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Jack helped Andrea up onto the Pearl, and they hoisted the dinghy together. Once safely secured, Andrea helped Jack raise the anchor and prepare to sail. He held her hands on the wheel, teaching her to steer the mighty ship even as he hummed his good-luck tune under his breath. "Show me that horizon, luv. We'll be finding out what's waiting for us out there...together."

THE END