Hey everyone, I'm back for more and I'm happy but sad at the same time. This story, I regret to say, is almost over and it sux! I hate finishing stories because it makes me feel iky! Oh well, the end has to come and soon it will and I think you'll all be very mad at me...sorry! It's true! Oh, and check out my new joint account with Morgans! We're under SixthYearGryffendor and we have a first together story up so check it out! Please, thanxs!

Chapter fifteen: brothers by blood

"I love you Anamaria." Nicholas coughed, spurting blood from his mouth. They were on the streets of Tortuga, in the dirt outside a pub. Men and women walked by, drinking and diverting their attention, some even stopped to watch but Anamaria didn't notice them, her eyes were on her husband...seeking his eyes for something, anything but the pain of death. "God will look after me and you..." He coughed up more blood and shuddered, turning pale.

Anamaria looked down and saw her hand was covered in his life's force as it steadily seeped from his body in the form of gunshots and stab wounds. Those bastards had really done a number on him. "No," Anamaria sobbed, "You can't leave me Nick...you can't." She pushed harder on her stomach as tears swam in her eyes and more blood poured from her husband. "No...please."

Nicholas smiled slightly and lifted his hand to touch her face. "I will never leave you." He said, running a finger over her trembling lips. "I'll be here...with you...forever." Anamaria shook her head and looked up through angry eyes at the men standing around watching. "Go!" She shouted, "Leave me be!" Some left, muttering about bloody whores but some mearly moved a few steps back and kept watching as though this was a show for their enjoyment.

Kalliea made her way from the pub's stairs and ran over, getting to her hands and knees beside Anamaria, her dress open and exposed to everyone standing there. She placed her hand on Anamaria's shoulder. "Ana...is it, who was..." Anamaria shook her head, not taking her eyes off her husband's face. His eyes were closing.

"No Nick, don't you dare leave me!" She shook him until he opened his eyes again and then looked over at Kalliea with pleading eyes. "Please, fetch the doctor!" She screamed. Kalliea looked down at Nicholas then at Anamaria, a torn look on her face. "What could you possibly be waiting for, go!"

"But, Ana...it's to late." Anamaria growled.

"No, it is not!" She screamed, "Get the doctor!" Kalliea, obviously scared at the expression on Anamaria's face, ran off through the crowd and down the street, disappearing on the next lane. Anamaria watched her go, a hopeless feeling in her chest. She already knew, deep down, that it was hopeless. There was nothing anyone could do.

She looked up at the crowd, pleadingly, watching the faces of the men and women around her without really seeing them. There was one man smoking a pipe in the back behind a woman with golden hair. Smoke curled around his head like a halo. A woman stood just to the side of him with red hair and painted lips and behind her was another man. He stopped only for a moment and then walked on, a sad expression on his face. Pity. Anamaria hated him, how could he pity her? How could he stand there so calmly when Nicholas was dying?

"Help! Someone help!" Anamaria screamed, lifting Nicholas into her arms and ignoring the groan that escaped his lips. "Please, help." The man turned, and looked back at her, his dark eyes intensely calm. Hatefully calm! She pleaded to him. "Please, help my husband...please."

The man looked away slowly, his clean-shaven face held with pity and sorrow at what she knew to be the truth deep down. There was no help to be had, not to her and certainly not to Nicholas. The man turned and walked back, retracing his steps in the Tortugan dirt so painfully slow to Anamaria's frantic mind. It was as if time had suddenly stopped.

He knelt down and moved her hand away; his own taking her place, palm down on her husband's wound. The two men stared at each other and Nicholas smiled and motioned him to come closer. The stranger did so, not to Anamaria's noticing. She was now looking for the doctor and Kalliea to come back. She had no glance to spare for some merchant...pirate...whatever he was.

The stranger nodded and straightened again, looking up at Anamaria through those astonishing eyes yet again. "I'm sorry." He said in such a strong a heartfelt voice that Anamaria could help but turn her attention back to him. "There's nothing anyone can do." Nicholas coughed again and more blood flew from his mouth. The stranger wiped it away with a dirty hand.

"Oh, what do you know?" Anamaria screamed, pushing him away. He managed to keep from falling but only just and stood up, straightening his clothing with a blank expression on his face. Anamaria buried her face in Nicholas's neck and felt his heart slowing. "What do you know?"

The stranger was gone when she looked up again, something that made her both angry and upset. How could he have just left her like that?

"I love you Ana." Nicholas gasped. Anamaria watched his face through watery eyes, watched his blurred eyes drift in and out of focus. "I...I-I-I-I l-l-lo-lo-love y-y-y-ou Ana-Anamaria. M-m-my l-l-love...my wife." And he was gone. His weight slumped down completely in her arms and he no longer breathed. Fighting to stop herself from screaming, Anamaria bit her lip and buried herself in her husband's neck again as people all around began to move on now that he was finally dead.

"Ana?" Kalliea was back. Anamaria allowed herself to be torn away from her lover's body and enveloped by the other woman's embrace as the doctor bent over Nicholas.

"I'm sorry ma'am." He said, sweeping his hat off his head and watching Anamaria cry into Kalliea's shoulder. "He's gone." Anamaria nodded, sobbing. Just a few short hours ago Nicholas and her had been laughing, he'd been talking about buying a boat and leaving the Caribbean. Now he was gone and she'd never see him again.

"Kalliea, Anamaria!" Came a voice from the pub. The girls broke apart and looked to the steps to see Micheal Rothenberg stepping g down them two at a time, his intensely lined face in a mask of rage. "What the hell happened?" Just then he saw Nicholas and the doctor. "Is he dead?" Anamaria couldn;'t speak or move. To nodded or answer would make it to final...to over. Kalliea answered for her.

"Yes sir." She said. "Just now."

"Well, no use mourning, he's dead and crying won't bring him back, get to work." Kalliea looked at Anamaria and began to cry to.

"Sir, please, I beg you, just..." Rothenberg came down the rest of the stirs and grabbed Kalliea by the back of the hair, ripping out a few strands as her thrust her neck back.

"it is very important that you do not finish that sentence." He growled in a hard, cold voice. "Now, I suggest if you both value you're future you will get back to work. I have clients in there that don't just come here for the alcohol, you understand me?" And he shoved Kalliea towards the pub's door. "Now, you're young children, Miss. Martain, do really love food and shelter ...do they not? I suggest you get in there and make the money to give that to them." Kalliea looked fearfully at Anamaria for a moment and then nodded, disappearing into the bustling pub.

"As for you, ex-Mrs. I suggest you get back in there to. I'm sure you're husband wouldn't want you to cry over him when you have a job to do and yourself to support. Now go." He pointed to the door. Anamaria watched the pub for a moment through streaming eyes but didn't move. Finally she shook her head.

"No." She said quietly. Rothenberg lifted an eyebrow and walked forwards a few steps, inclining his head.

"Excuse me, whore? I thought I just heard you say 'no'." Anamaria stood up a little straighter, smoothing out her dress.

"Good, then you can still hear. I said 'no'. I won't work in there another day." Rothenberg smiled and walked towards her shaking his head,. When he was close enough, he drew back and punched her as hard as he could in the face. Anamaria heard a loud crunching sound and staggered backwards into the doctor who caught her and lowered her to the ground, quickly getting gout of the angry Rothenberg's way as he barreled down apon her once again.

"You dirty whore! Screw you!" He got on top of her and punched her again, connecting with Anamaria's already sore cheek. The swelling before now broke open and began to bleed along with her lips. "YOU'LL..." He punched her again, "GET..." SMACK! "IN..." SMACK! "THERE..." SMACK! "AND..." SMACK! "DO WHAT I..." SMACK! "SAY OR..." SMACK! "ELSE!" breathing hard he smacked her again and then got up, straightening his clothing and rubbing his bloody knuckles...her blood, not his. "Get up you dirty whore!" He kicked her in the ribs and Anamaria gasped, rolling over and clutching her stomach. "I'll be waiting." And he left, walking up the stairs and into the pub.

Anamaria watched him go through swollen eyes and moved ever so slowly backwards, crawling like a snake across the ground until she found her husband's body. She curled into it and closed her eyes.

She'd always believed in God...until now. Under her breath, she muttered, "There is no such thing as god and, if there is, I hate him! You hear that! I HATE YOU! YOU RUINED MY LIFE!" and she began to cry. She wouldn't go in that pub again. She'd find a ship, she'd board it. She'd be fearce and feared. N man would ever hit her again. No man would ever feel her love, only her wrath! No man would ever bring her down again. And god? God had left her that day. She was alone.

Anamaria kneaded her forehead with her hands and then pressed them into her eyes until little stars popped here and there in the darkness pressing in on her. That had been so long ago but the memory still came to her as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. She sighed and turned around, taking in the Dauntless and her red-coated crew.

Her thoughts couldn't hold them for long and soon they had swayed back to Nicholas. She missed him so much and the empty space where he had been still hadn't filled. Neither had her loss of God. Nicholas hadn't known she'd worked as a whore and she thanked her lucky stars that he never found out. The shame and humiliation would have killed him. She worked at night when he was asleep because he wad always passed out from a hard day's work or alcohol and never heard her leave or enter.

He'd been a merchant but a poor one, away a lot working across the ocean or somewhere else. Anamaria had begged him to give up his job and take up and new one but he wouldn't, even if it meant them starving. Then, when they lost the baby she'd taken up a whore's life to help support them, just saying the church gave them donations or she found a few pennies on the street.

They'd come for him that night, just outside her pub. She'd heard the scuffles and gone to investigate. She knew the man who had done it, she'd learned his name and would always remember his face to her dying day. His name was Fredrick Marko and the last she had heard, he'd died in some freak accident out at sea. Anamaria grimaced and watched the water struggling to breathe below the ship as it lapped at the hull. Damn, she would have loved to tear him apart one by one.

Behind her, the sounds of talking and footsteps pulled her from her thoughts and she turned to see a very alive but pale Jack Sparrow talking with the Commodore. Strange, Anamaria thought as she watched them cross the deck, a pirate and a navy man, talking civilized to each other and not trying to kill the other. Anamaria smiled. Sometimes, miracles did happen.

Jack sighed and crossed his arms over his chest as he and the commodore did a fourth lap around the ship. Couldn't he squeeze him for information when he was less tired?

"You know." Jack said, interrupting Norrington for the fiftieth time in the last hour. "Let's just admit it, I don't like you and you don't like me." Norrington smiled blandly and stopped, turning to Jack with a raised eyebrow. "I mean...you're like tea."

"You're comparing me to tea?" Norrington asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice at being interrupted. Like usual, it came out more monotonous then it did when he was younger and let his feelings show. "Why, Mr. Sparrow, I never thought of you as that deep...always the opposite, actually." Jack smiled simply and leaned on the Commodore who tried to get away unsuccessfully.

"Well, think about it. You're warm," Where as he was so bloody cold, Norrington thought bemusedly, still listening all the same. "You're plain, sometimes with a touch of excitement, in tea's case lemon." He put up his thumb and forefinger, pushing them so close together you could hardly tell there was a gap there. "And you leave a bad taste in my mouth." Norrington finally was able to remove Jack's arm and brushed off his coat while Jack staggered a few steps back to lean on the railing. "And I really don't like you."

"Oh? And what are you Mr. Sparrow? What drink do you happen to grace?" Jack didn't even need to think about that one.

"Rum." He said. Norrington smiled, not surprised in the least.

"Ah," He sighed. "Let me count the similarities with that one. Number one, you're dark...number two, all pirates like rum and you are a pirate and three, you leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth along with a false sense of security and false promises to help, hey?"

Jack thought about it a moment and shrugged. "I would have settled for alcoholic." He stated simply, his eyes travelling over to Anamaria who stood with her back to him at the railing across the ship. Even as he watched, the young eleven-year-old doctor came forward and engaged her in conversation. Jack didn't care how much he'd been help the other night; he still didn't like him at all. "And also, with the false promises, I was totally telling the truth four years ago." He turned around with a pained look on his face and watched the Commodore, "Are you still mad at me for that?"

"You lied to us." Norrington said, leaning on the railing to. "That's all Sparrow." Jack shook his head.

"No. You didn't listen to me. I told you to go back to the ship because then you could shoot them with you're cannons. You first of all didn't listen to me, and that's your fault. Secondly, how was I supposed to know that they could bloody well walk under the water?" Norrington raised an eyebrow. "I didn't plan them. Those mates of Barbossa are a strange lot and, besides, I helped in the end. It's also you're fault they got away. I'm not the inept one here."

"Done?" Norrington asked as Jack took a deep breath. Jack nodded. "You know about the escape then?" Jack smiled.

"I have my sources. I always thought you were a lousy Commodore." Norringotn raised an eyebrow.

"Really? And you could do better?" Jack sighed.

"I would have killed them." He answered. The commodore snorted.

"And yet you waited ten years to get the Pearl back?" Jack's face clouded over and he looked up the main mast to the navy man in the crow's nest.

"I got my revenge and I did what I had to do." He said. "My crew will always pay so leave them out of it." Norrington sighed and diverted his attention to Elizabeth who was strolling with Gibbs along the far end of the ship. "Now, what the hell do you want from me?"

"I want to know what they're all after and I know you know. I want to stop them and hang them, all of them." He had a strange note in his voice that made Jack turn back to him. Jack finally smiled and again leaned on the Commodore who took it in stride this time.

"Me included?" Jack asked. Norrington didn't answer which made Jack laugh lightly. "Ah, you don't have to keep anything from me mate." He said, examining his fingernails. "I want to kill you to but the question is...why should I help you and what's in it for me?"

"I promise to make it quick and painless." Norringotn said, brushing Jack's hand off his shoulder. "A shot to the head, spare the rope."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Jack asked. Norringotn raised an eyebrow. Jack's mind was going. Maybe it would be better to let the Commodore think that he would go along with it. "So no matter what I do, I have to die?"

"Yes, the moment you are dead all charges will drop but, until that time you are to serve me as your superior under the queen and her country until you're death. Then, at that time you will be released of your transgressions and free to..."

"Be dead?" Jack asked, smiling. The commodore swallowed and nodded, brushing Jack's arm off his shoulder again. Jack nodded and stepped away. "Well, then I guess you won't know anything, will you? Unfortunately for both of us, the map was destroyed in the Pearl along with the letter. Will was taken and all we have is my word and memory to find the bloody treasure." He smiled and staggered backwards, watching the commodore. "Just remember that mate. If I die, all clues to the treasure are gone and you...well, you have no leverage against Barbossa, Mulan and those other bloody cowards." Norrington smiled blandly, turned and walked away towards his cabin leaving Jack standing there in the middle of the deck. He had his life to bargain with now.

Bill and Will sat side by side in their cell, talking about this and that. They'd already exhausted the subject of Will's early life and were now moving on, up closer to the presant. "And that's how I met Jack." He said. Bill smiled and leaned his head back against the inner deck, feeling the trickles of salty water seeping through the cracks in the wood. "He's such a strange man, I never can understand him. Would he have killed me?"

"I doubt it. He has his ways. He always tries to get what he wants with out losing anything he has. He tries to have the world you know." Will nodded and rubbed at his upper arms. It was really cold in here and, now that he was dry, he seemed about as cold as when he had been wet.

"How did you meet him?" He asked, looking over at his father, still hardly daring to believe it was him. Bill sighed.

"I met him when we were younger, although it wasn't a happy meeting. My father and mother had been breaking up for a long time and, when I was five, I found out that my father had cheated on my mother with some woman in the lower class. I went to that house and I banged on the door." He smiled. "I don't know what I expected to do, maybe kill the woman? I don't know. Anyway, Jack's mother came to the door." He smiled again. "She was so beautiful Will, I can't even describe it." Will's brow furrowed and he watched his father closely. Was he saying what Will thought he was saying?

"So...Jack is..." Will started but Bill held up a hand.

"I told her off. I told her she was a whore though, I didn't know what that meant. I just wanted to hurt this beautiful woman for hurting my mother." He smiled and closed his eyes. "Suddenly, a kid maybe...three or so, jumped from the shadows at the side of the door, leaped on me and began strangling me. He beat my head into the sidewalk so hard I actually still have an indent. His mother pulled him off and I got a good look at this scrawny, scraggly little kid." He laughed; making Will crack a smile. "Jack, he took his mother's last name of Sparrow...I kept Turner. We were more friends then brothers after that and I even always called him my friend. Brothers through blood, friends by choice." He opened his eyes and looked at Will, who sat there, shocked. "So no, Jack would never have hurt you. He's all talk really."

"So Jack is...my uncle?" Bill nodded slowly and Will felt his breath catching in his throat. "I never...he never told...how could..." Bill smiled.

"Jack's strange." He said simply, shrugging as much as his wounds would allow. "He knows things, he does things. But, I'm more curious in this woman from you're story, Elizabeth. You never told me her connection with you and why you went to such lengths to save her. Did she give you anything in return?" Will looked up, not only shocked at the fact that Jack was uncle Jack but also that he hadn't even told his father about Elizabeth.

"We got married." He said. Bill beamed at him, pride all over his face. "We're having are first kid in seven months." Bill clapped him on the back and laughed jovially.

"That's my boy!" He exclaimed, "Always like your father, get the girl you save!"

"What do you mean?" Will asked. Bill sighed and squeezed his shoulder.

"I saved your mother...she had a run away horse." He said, "And my first girlfriend, May." Will sat up straighter on the uncomfortable floor. "They were both so beautiful. When I heard you're mother had died...I couldn't come to you because I was supposed to be dead."

"Why didn't you want the curse to be lifted?" Will asked, watching his father closely. Bill sighed.

"It was our penance for disturbing the gold." He said. A shiver ran over him and he looked grimly at Will. "I have to say though, every now and then I feel the gold call to me as if I were still under it's power. When I managed to get free under the water and swim up it was night and the moon, it changed me again. I was neither alive nor dead and I was able to get to land three or four days later. I needed no food nor water nor air. Will, it's a sad way to live." He sighed deeply. "The gold still calls to me and my skin..." He raised a hand to his face. "It gets cold from time to time."

"Ice cold?" Will asked, moving closer to his father. Bill looked up and nodded.

"Yes, every now and then. You see, Will, I think the gold's curse effects all of us because, after all these years of being under it, I am suddenly free and it wants to lure me back."

"The same with Jack then, only he's cold all the time." Bill looked at him blankly.

"Jack?" He asked. "Why would it hurt Jack?"

"Jack took a piece of the gold for a few minutes, so he could beat Barbossa." Will said and then began to explain all the events he could remember. Bill listened and nodded.

"Maybe, it's doing that to Jack because it didn't have him as long as it had us and now it's trying to lure him back to share in our suffering because he didn't have it long enough to suffer." Bill said. Trying to understand what his dad had just said, Will opened his mouth to reply when light streamed down the stairs at the other end and people began to descend.

Will recognized Pintel and Ragettie from the Black Pearl's original crew. They'd gone to jail! Hadn't they? The other was a man Will had never seen before but he looked a lot like Barbossa.

"I see the little whelp and the big ox are up." The strange man said. Will suddenly understood who he was. This had to be Ethan Barbossa. "Tell me, whelp. Is Jack Sparrow dead?"

Will kept quite for a moment. How did he know, the last thing he could remember was Jack sinking below the waves before he'd passed out. For all he knew, Jack was dead. Maybe he wasn't though. If they didn't find his body.

"Yes." Will said, glancing over at his father. "Jack was killed in the explosion on the Pearl. I watched him die, we were in the water. I swam away and I must have passed out because I woke up here. Jack's dead." Ethan nodded and then motioned for Pintel to unlock the door while Ragettie left, moving up the stairs in the other end of the room. Soon, however, he returned with three other large men.

"I know you know which bottle is which Mr. Turner." Ethan said, walking into the cell flanked by two of the large men. The third held Bill down as the two grabbed Will roughly and pulled him to his feet. "I know Jack knew and he wouldn't tell Mulan so," Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. "Which is the right bottle?"

"Go to hell." Will spat. Ethan smiled then wound up and punched Will in the stomach. Will would have sunken to his knees but he was being held up by the large men. This happened again and again until Will was cursing Jack Sparrow's name.

DragonHunter200: I like the 'new favorite lines thingy' name, it's fresh! It's cool. Yeah, Gibbs was probably sleepin' with men...or pigs. Who knows? P.S, I'm staring at you through the screen. Hehehehehehe! The whole red coats thing made laugh so hard man! That was awful and oddly wonderful at the same time. Yeah, Anamaria would hate going to the Mounted Police Parades here in Canada if she hated red fabric...and the colors on the flag! This would be a total prison for her! Yeah, if someone gave me a knife while I slept I'd end up killing myself by accident, I wouldn't be alive to be woken because I'm a bad sleeper. I don't think they had Prozac back then. Do you know if they had drugs like pot and stuff? Probably...I never checked it out. I should....Yeah, we should start the NGE! NO GRADE 11! That sound good? It does to me.

Padme17: Hi. Of course it's a good chapter! What you thought I'd make a bad one? (Sniff) Okay, I'm getting over it...slowly. Keep reading and reviewing.

Tuke of the Pyrenees: Cool name. I like it...it's...cool, I don't know what to say. I like cliffies...they make me feel important.