For you lovely people who reviewed chapter nine (JackSparrowsBooty and Aleviel): Thank you SO much for reviewing...sorry I didn't credit you on the last entry!

CrazeeI: hehe! i'm glad you liked it. This story is like my baby and I love when people complement it!

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Will laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

He was exhausted. Sweat was streaming down his face through his hair, which was now almost completely drenched, and the muscles in his forehead twitched nervously with every heartbeat. He could feel his body turning cold starting at the tips of his fingers and toes.

He was trembling from the icy pain that stretched itself in tendrils over his upper body from the point at which the blade still impaled him. His shoulder had gone completely numb from the shock and intensity of the pain.

He'd been pinned to the wall for one long hour, dwelling in the shock of his wound and the trepidation he felt for his family, knowing they were in danger. Will had tried desperately to pull the sword out of his shoulder. He'd tried pulling it gradually, then harder, then even yanking at it as much as he could bear, but Wilde had driven it very deep into the wall and it could not be moved. Now Will's hands were a mess of jagged and bloody cuts from grabbing the blade.

After a while he had given up his attempt to free himself. The sword refused to budge, and Will was weak from loss of blood and growing steadily worse as time passed. He remained in a calamitous state of mind, shaking not only from the agony of his wound but from fear and anger at not being able to defend his unknowing and unassuming family from the black-hearted pirates.

Will thought mostly of Elizabeth. Their last words had not been the most well meant - and now he wondered if he would ever see her again. She had been the girl he had loved since the day he had been rescued from the sea and placed in her care as a child. God only knew how much he yearned for her now, to know that she was safe...

Will cursed pirates. He had been right to want to kill them in those days before the Black Pearl and Barbossa. How or why he had ever decided to become one was a mystery to him now. Piracy was lunacy, and good people tended to get hurt by them most often. Besides, he comforted himself; he wasn't really a pirate after all. He had no ship, no crew, no ties to the pirate culture besides his father who had left his family to follow the accursed trade - but even this failed to comfort Will. Denying his past would bring about no good end.

There might not be a future for him. The outlook was bleak indeed, especially from the middle of a badly welded sword-blade which Will was beginning to feel wasn't as smooth as he had formerly supposed.

But was a future, without Elizabeth.

Will gave another gasp as his shoulder jerked convulsively. He could feel the life slipping from him and realized that if he didn't free himself from his imprisonment immediately then all hope would be lost.

He eyed the part of the blade that protruded from his shoulder and wrapped the fingers of his right hand around it. His left hand was limp and lifeless due to so great a loss of blood and would be of no use in the attempt that he was going to make. Closing his eyes in a moment of preparation Will tightened his grip on the blade. With an agonizing cry as the metal bit into his already ensanguined flesh, he pulled hard at the sword, bracing his body against the wall as he strained to liberate himself from his fell constrain.

The sword creaked mightily in the wood of the wall, but moved hardly an inch. Will fell back, completely debilitated from his efforts, and resigned himself to his fate.

Suddenly the door of the shop flew open and Estrella came whirling into the shop in a flurry of tears.

"Master Will!" she screamed. "Oh, what have they done?!"

Will's eyes shot open.

"Estrella!" he cried, "Where's Elizabeth?"

"Oh Master Will," Estrella sobbed, wringing her hands into her apron. "They've taken her! They've taken her to their ship!"

Will flopped his head back. The pirates had got his wife. Suddenly, Will was filled with a grim and terrible resolve.

"Help me, Estrella," he commanded. The maid blinked her red eyes. "How shall I do it?" she blubbered piteously. Will shook his head.

"I don't know."

Estrella was not exceedingly bright, but now with the attack and the kidnap of her beloved mistress and mistreatment of her master, she was determined to be of use. Noticing an ax lying in the corner she seized upon it and brought it to Will.

"I shall have to cut you out of there," she whimpered, brandishing the weapon menacingly in front of her. Will eyed it warily, then decided that since he had the choice of dying slowly on the blade or dying quickly with an ax to the skull (and some small chance of survival), he would choose the latter and risk it.

Estrella swung the ax above her head and brought it down with a crack next to Will. He flinched as she repeated the action again and again until he was free. Only a small piece of wood clung to the blade.

Will fell weakly to the floor.

"The blade is still in your shoulder," Estrella murmured anxiously. Will nodded.

"You'll have to take it out," he said. The maid gasped.

"I couldn't!" she cried. "I couldn't do that!"

Will was solemn. His face was now so pale it resembled the color of a bedsheet and his body was soaked in cold sweat.

"You have to," he said. "I'll die if you don't."

Estrella wrung her hands again and sobbed woefully into her apron. Will waited patiently, and after a moment the maid emerged looking calmer and more composed.

"I'll do it now," she said waveringly.

"Take the leather gloves on the fireplace," Will instructed, gesturing weakly to the articles. Estrella put them on and went to stand behind Will who had dropped dejectedly to his knees with a look of extreme concentration.

"Grab the blade," Will ordered her. She did so. Will winced a little as the sword moved diagonal in his shoulder.

There was a moment of complete silence as both people prepared themselves.

"Pull!" Will shouted. Estrella pulled. She braced her knee against her master's back and tugged at the blade as hard as she could. Will screamed in a shudder of agony as the metal knife cut through his shoulder again to fit its wider end in its emergence.

Estrella screamed with him as she gave one last defiant yank at the blade, pulling it out at last from Will's suffering body. She lifted the weapon high with a mixture of triumph and disbelief at her own daring as Will collapsed in a senseless heap on the floor.