godgirl9: Who Delila's mother is? Well, you might just figure it out in later chapters! Her mother will most probably pop up, in one form or another!

While the two captains were still unaware of the situation at hand, Rolf and his group were ploughing through the jungle. The island was big, and they had already been walking for a couple of hours. The sun was setting, and in the dense jungle it was quickly getting too dark to see clearly.

"We can't go on like this!" one of the men shouted to Rolf, who went on as if there were no bushes, no tangly roots or twisted vines hindering them.

"Yea, 's too dark. What're we lookin' for anyway, Rolf?"

No reply; the burly man, now just a shadow in the shadows, moved on.

"I'm not goin' anywhere!" one man finally declared, and the others stopped too, wiping sweaty brows and kicking at the undergrowth, agreeing loudly

Rolf turned towards them, his eyes glinting in the dark.

"The island is inhabited. And they have young captain Turner and her father."

"Howd'ya…" the man who had first protested – Malory – started, but Rolf had started walking again. The others followed, not one of them objecting again. Neither of them noticed that Malory didn't follow.

ooo

When Jack and Delila arrived at their destination at the beach it was already getting dark. The sun had almost set into the Caribbean ocean, and had turned the sky in the horizon into a firework of red and yellow. But neither of the pirates took notice of the lovely view. What they did notice, was the severe lack of human life at the appointed camp.

"Uhm, are you sure this is the right place?" Delila looked around, straining her eyes to get a good look at the place in the rapidly fading light.

"Aye, 'tis the place." Jack rubbed his chin before crouching down in the sand next to what appeared to be human footprints. "There's been people here. Quite a few of them, also. Can't quite recall the crew being this numerous."

Delila sat down next to him, a worried look on her face. "They're no," she mumbled, looking towards the jungle. The footprints seemed to be heading south-east, away from the camp.

"You don't think…" she didn't finish the sentence. Instead she looked at her father, worry etched into her features. He didn't return her gaze.

"Yes, I do." He stood up, brushing the sand off his pants. There was no mistaking it. They'd left Doll and Will right here, there was no mistaking the place, and the landlubbers had taken off into the jungle. And probably not of their own free will.

Delila jumped to her feet, a look of panic on her face. "We have to go after them! They may be hurt, or… or worse!" She didn't want to think about it. "I should never have left them, this is bad, this is so bad…"

Jack got to his feet and grabbed the girl, trying to shake some sense into her. It seem to work, although not quite as he had intended. Delila's feet gave away under her and she fell against his chest, hiccupping. Jack felt awkward; he had never quite gotten the hang of dealing with emotions, and especially not his daughter. He patted her on the back, trying to come up with something comforting to say. Drawing blank he just continued to stand still, waiting for the lass to calm down. After what seemed like an eternity, her body seemed to relax, and she mumbled something into his coat.

"What's that, luv?" he asked, giving her hair a last pat, just for good measures.

"I'm cold."

ooo

Doll bit her lip, trying not to seem like she was clinging to her father like a four-year-old who's afraid of the dark. She tried really hard not to say 'I'm scared', because that would sound cowardly. Besides, she had already said it four times.

"It's all right, Doll," Will muttered, shifting a little without letting go of his daughter. They were sitting on the floor that was really the ground, inside a small hut with no oil lamps or candles. A cold breeze blew through the wide cracks in the walls, which were really just poles stuck in the ground with a roof of leaves. Through one wall he could glimpse a tall man with a spear, standing guard. He felt the girl in his arms shiver with cold, and sat up a little so he could take off his jacket. Putting it over her shoulders he repeated the mantra of "it's all right".

"It's not all right," Doll sniffled, sitting up and pulling the jacket closer around her. "We're prisoners, and there are savages here with weapons, too many for the crew to help us, and why would they? They're pirates. Those who stay behind are left behind, remember? They didn't come back for Stede Bonnet, or Maurycy Beniowski's first mate. They had to get out of it themselves. Why are we just sitting here and waiting?"

Doll had managed to work herself up from hopelessness and fear to anger and resolution with that speech. Will stared at her, baffled.

"Where did you hear those names?"

"I… oh. Um." She sat down against the wall again, avoiding looking at her father. "I read about them." There was no point in telling secrets now. The constraints of the life of an upper-class lady seemed far away and long ago.

"You found your mother's book," Will stated, but his tone was light, not laced with the sadness the mention of Elizabeth usually brought to it.

"Aren't you angry?"

She heard the flutter of hair as he shook his head. "No. No, I'm not. You're just like her, she was always testing the bonds holding her down."

"Really?" Doll thought of her mother; a brilliant, energetic creature, but never anything but correct… what Doll had seen of her, anyway. "Tell me."

Will laughed softly, starting to talk while his mind was clearly wandering. "When you were two years old, we attended a party at your grandfather's place. You remember him?" Doll nodded eagerly, not wanting to disturb the story. "She was bored. She got bored easily in places like that; it was all restraints and no fun, she said. We went into a small room near the kitchen where they kept the leftover food. It was cold in there, much better than the stuffy air in the hall. She said she was starving; people look funnily at a woman who eats a lot, so she ate like a bird during dinner. But in there, free from all the eyes of the party, she let it all go. She ripped a leg off a chicken and ate it with her bare hands. Imagine that, in her pretty white dress, getting grease all over her hands."

Doll giggled, she could very well imagine it. "Then what happened?"

"A servant came in."

"No!" Doll gasped. "What did Mum do?"

"She waved the chicken leg in the air and said: 'this is delicious, tell the cook that he can get a job in the Turner mansion any day!'"

Doll clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter, as the guard outside the house stirred.

"Then what?" she whispered.

"Then I got hungry just watching her, so I ate a leg too. Then we had a swordfight with the bones, and ended up in a small cupboard, and…" He suddenly stopped and sat up straight, coughing. "I can tell another story later. We need to find a way to signal to the others where we are."

"I miss her," Doll said quietly. Will slumped a little against the wall.

"So do I."

Doll leaned in and hugged him, feeling that he needed it as much as her. "She probably misses us too, where she is now."

Will nodded, then smiled a little. "What do you think she'd say if she saw us now?"

Doll grinned. "She'd say: 'it's about time you got out of that stuffy house, but what do you mean with getting yourselves locked into another one? Do something, you slowpokes!'"

Will laughed. "She probably would. But we won't get anywhere in the dark, these people know this island too well. We'd better get some sleep."

Doll nodded, and after a while she drifted away, sleeping soundly and safely in her father's embrace. Will, on the other hand stayed awake, alert for any sign of help that might come.

"We're getting out of here, love," he whispered. "I promise."

What's going to happen to Will and Doll? Is the dynamic captain-duo going to find them before it is too late? And just where the heck is Rolf and the crew? ... Come to think of it, where the heck are we?