[Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters that are recognizable from the movie.

A/N: I must say that I'm rather disappointed with myself. It took me far to long to repost all the chapters - something I should have (and could have) done in under an hour. But having a story removed was like a slap in the face. I work hard, as all writers do, at making sure that each chapter is as good as it could be, even though to me they are not at all as good as they should be. I'm ashamed to have been so thrown off by having this story removed. The week that I was unable to post should have been enough to regain my composure, in a way…But instead I held a grudge, a self-righteous boycott of the site…all because I had lost a few reviews. And because of that I realize that it is entirely to presumptuous for me to call myself a writer…a true writer would write for herself, not for the reviews that her chapters get. Writing is about freedom, about joy, about something that I can develop and get better at, I think, and in time I can be proud of for the words and stories themselves, and not for the reviews, as wonderful as they are. And writing is not about comparing the number of reviews one has, and using that to determine a writer's caliber. So I'm going to try to be a bit more mature (perhaps some of my characters should do so as well) and write without feeling injured or spiteful every time I see the number of reviews.

And so begins chapter 20.]

I don't know how long I sat staring at the hand that Will had bandaged to tenderly, but it must have been a considerable amount of time as Mary practically threw herself down the stairs, looking around as if worried that she'd find me dead.

"Christina!" she breathed, rushing over to me. She stopped before she reached me, looking at me hesitantly. "Are you very angry with me?" she asked meekly, and I looked up at her tone. It had been a very long time since I'd heard Mary use so timid a voice, especially around me. I bit my lip and paused for a few long moments before answering.

"I think I am a bit angry…not just at you, of course, but at nearly everyone up there!" I said, jerking a thumb angrily at where the rest of the crew were no doubt placing bets and wagering on how long it would be before I was with child or what not. I truly despise pirates.

"I'm so sorry, Christina -" Mary said, but I held up a hand. "I know you thought that you were helping me, I suppose you thought that it was in my best interests…"

"And what did you get out of it?" Mary moaned miserably, "You got your hand sliced open! I'm sorry, Christina, and I'll understand if you want to - to…dump me on an island filled with heathens or what not…"

I hid my smile, amazed that I could talk to her and act so composed when I was still bewildered as to what had just occurred between Will and myself. "Now, Mary, if I wanted justice, I would have to maroon the whole crew. And you know as well as I do that I can't sail this ship all by my lonesome." I said. Mary sniffled.

"So, what did you and Will talk about?" she asked suddenly, eyeing my hand with a sparkle in her eyes not caused by tears. I looked at her abruptly, wondering if she had been crying at all in the first place. She changed moods so rapidly, for a moment it was all I could do to sit and blink. Mary fixed me with a rather smug grin, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against a table casually. She looked the way Mrs. Dawson did when she overheard a particularly rancid piece of gossip. I gaped at her.

"Well, what did you talk about?" she prompted, playing with the ends of her hair leisurely, as if she was already quite sure of the outcome. As if her and Jack's little ploy with the duel could only have one outcome, and that was for me and Will to make up.

"Did he demand his prize?" she said wickedly. I stood up angrily. "I will have you know that Will is more honorable than that - while he would go about kissing my sister behind my back, he wouldn't force himself upon me if that was not what I wished!" I said hotly, glaring at her with my hands on my hips. My injured hand stung terribly and I moved it with an aggravated sigh.

"Aye, Princess, but is that not what ye wish?" I heard Anamaria's low voice behind me and spun around as she came to stand next to Mary. They made a strange tableau as they stood opposite from me, Mary so pristine and pale looking like quite the proverbial angel, even if her hair was devil's red. And Anamaria, looking every part the deceitful and villainous gypsy, with her dark skin and hair and eyes, she was fixing me with a rather nasty grin.

"I beg your pardon!" I yelped. Anamaria's grin widened. Mary looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Don't act so innocent, Princess, yeh know as well as the I what the obligations of a wife are." she said.

"I am not his wife." I growled, feeling blood rush to my face and loathing it. Anamaria opened her mouth to say more but I cut her off quickly, "And I cannot think of any man who would be stupid enough to take you as his wife, in this world or in the layers of hell!" I spat, and Mary's eyes widened. Anamaria scowled.

"Aye. And I can think of no man who would be good enough for me." she said. I raised an eyebrow haughtily. "Is that so? Funny, you did a splendid job of making sure Captain Sparrow had no trouble from me the day after the storm." I murmured. Anamaria's visage darkened. "Yeh threatened mutiny." she said dangerously. Mary was looking between us with wide eyes.

"I did nothing of the sort and you know it."

"What else do ye call not following the Captain's orders, Princess?" Anamaria snarled.

"Must be hard for you, hmm, with Jack's affections so obviously elsewhere." I said through clenched teeth. I was speaking, of course, of Laurelyn, and Anamaria seemed to know that. She said nothing but stood as still as a stone with her hands clenched at her side. I smiled triumphantly and left both her and Mary standing there, brushing past Jack on the way up. He wheeled around and followed me right back up to the deck.

"What was that all about, love?" he asked, following me as I paced around. Involuntarily I looked for Will, but he was nowhere to be found. I whirled around and faced Jack.

"Where's Will?" I demanded. Jack's eyebrows rose and a smile made its way slowly onto his face. "Made up that quickly, did ye?" he asked. "Wouldn't have known it, the way that pup came storming out here…"

"Jack. Where. Is. Will?" I asked tightly, my eyes darting around the ship. The worst possible things jumped into my mind. What if I'd hurt him so much that he'd leapt from the Pearl? No, Will wasn't that stupid, he wouldn't have done that…but he looked ever so let down when I didn't say anything to him…but someone on the Pearl would have known if he did do something rash…unless he'd just snuck away...

"I understand ye'll be wanting to do some more makin' up with him, lass, but if ye'll just let me get a word in edgewise -"

"WHERE IS HE?" I shouted. Jack stopped in the middle of a word and looked at me, surprised. "He's right up in the crows' nest, love, lookin' a bit sulky but no worse for wear…" Jack said quietly. I took a deep breath and put a shaking hand to my eyes. "Of - of course he is. Up in the crows' nest. He's fine." I said, feeling stupid for even thinking that he would jump overboard just because of me.

"Love, what's wrong?" Jack asked, touching my arm gently and leading me into his office house. I walked in and looked around mutely. It was very different than Commodore Norrington's. For one thing, I'm willing to wager that I wont find an ivory-toothed comb or powder in here. Where Commodore Norrington's office was ritzy and reeked of pompous Royal Navy officer, Jack's was quite the opposite. There was maps scattered about and a good few - empty, I noticed - bottles of rum. Pushed up hastily against the wall and as messy as if it had never been made was Jack's bed, spare clothes and maps and books strewn across it. On his desk was a large quill and an ink well, and, as I walked closer I could see pieces of parchment with cramped spidery writing.

"Jack…you can write?" I asked, astonished. Just from looking at Jack Sparrow, you wouldn't think that he was the literary type. He stumbled far too much and slurred his words too often for him to seem a scholar. But as I gazed at his documents, notes on the islands he'd been to and the like, it seemed that he was.

"I'm a Captain, pet, it comes with the job description." Jack was saying. I smiled, thinking of how Commodore Norrington would be floored. "Well, Captain, it seems like you are a regular gentleman." I said softly, looking around his desk. On the wall was a sword that looked as if it was made of gold, and on his desk laying in a clay bowl were necklaces of the finest pearls I'd ever seen. Pink, white, gray, black, and yellow, they all sat tangled like snakes in the clay bowl that looked most out of place.

I looked up to see Jack with his eyebrow raised, he was watching me appraisingly. "Are ye going to tell me what happened, love?" he asked. I frowned. "Why? So you can plot behind my back with Mary and Anamaria about how you are going to get Will and I back together! I think not! I don't need you, or Mary, or Anamaria to be pulling strings as if I'm a puppet who can't do any better! I came here to get away from that sort of thing!"

Jack sighed, making me feel as if I was a naughty child who he had to reprimand. I scowled.

"For your information, Will promised to stop -" my voice broke and I put a hand over my mouth, my eyes widening. Jack looked up. I bit my lip. "He promised to stop asking me to marry him, if it made me so unhappy. He said he would stop." I said quietly, wondering why this made me feel so awful if it was what I had wanted in the first place. I looked at Jack, who was muttering under his breath.

"…stupid boy, to give up just like that! Bloody idiot, his father would be turning in his grave…"

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Well, ye'll have to get him back of course." Jack said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I crossed my arms over my chest.

"And what if I don't want to?"

"Christina -"

"What if I want to be left in peace, hmm?"

"Pet -"

"What if I don't need some man to take care of me? Some man who will just as easily hurt me as he would love me -"

"Listen, love -"

"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, you know!"

Jack slammed his hand on the desk, making me jump. "Yes, darling, we are all very well aware of that." he drawled, sarcasm dripping from his voice like oil. I narrowed my eyes at him, but his gaze softened. "Listen…did ye ever stop to think that maybe all those men with wives aren't takin' care of their wives as much as their wives are takin' care of them?" he asked. I stared at him and fought down the urge to laugh. I failed, and laughed outright. Jack, for the first time that I could remember, looked a bit flustered but still he held his ground.

"This can't be right…Jack Sparrow, telling me that men need women to live? Oh wait, Jack, coming from you, that is about right, but if that's all Will wants me for..." I snorted. What was so amusing to me is how serious Jack was when he delivered that line. It seemed as if someone had taken all the people I know and pulled them inside out, so that I could hardly recognize them anymore.

"Laugh if you will, pet, but tell me: how was your father, after his wife left him?"

I froze, staring at Jack mutely again. My father was indeed devastated after my mother left, and still carried the remnants of that with him even now. Would Will spend his years like my father, lonely and blaming himself, if I never forgave him? I felt my hands slow fall to my sides limply.

"But - but Will doesn't think of me as…as his…does he?" I faltered, all the mirth sucked from the room as fast as it had come. Jack walked up to me and put a firm hand on my arm, leading me from his office forcefully. "He does, Christina…why d'yeh think he asked ye to marry him in the first place? Why d'yeh think he came after ye?"

"Every man -"

"No, love. It's not his guilty conscience." Jack said, opening the door for me. I turned around as he let go of my arm.

"Jack?" I asked. "Aye?" he said, nodding towards the crows' nest as if that's where he plainly was ordering me to go. I glared. "Yer to clean that crows' nest, Christina, as the deck is sparkling already." Jack said firmly. I sighed, as part of the crew I had to do what I was told, even if I didn't like it.

"You don't have a wife, Jack." I said pointedly, glaring at him still.

"Aye." he said gruffly, closing the door in my face.

"Clean the crows' nest…what rubbish is that? Nobody stays up there long enough to foul it up." I muttered, climbing up the rigging with a rag hanging precariously over my shoulder. I was worried about being face to face with Will…stupid, as over the past few days I'd been face to bare-bloody-chest with him. Needless to say, now it was different. Now, he was not my pursuer, and he wouldn't be strutting about shirtless. Now, I didn't know where we were. At least yesterday I could be angry with him and not have to worry about more complicated things. Now, he was my ex-fiancé who was doing what I wanted him to do to please me. But instead being pleased, I found myself being introduced into a new kind of misery.

I took a breath and hauled myself up into the crows' nest, only to be greeted with - no one. Will was nowhere to be seen. I stared around at the emptiness with a mixture of relief and disappointment. I wanted him to be here so I could make sure that he didn't hate me or that I hadn't hurt him too much. For all the time I'd spent thinking of how I would get back at him - which was considerable, when the wounds that he inflicted (not literally, in this case) were still raw. Even when I considered them less than scars that would twinge with the weather and had thought about how nice it would be if I repaid him for that. But I knew that I never wanted to hurt him. That made me rather angry with myself, as if it made me weak, not wanting to get even. But the thought of hurting Will hurt me more, and I desperately wanted to stop hurting, to put him from my mind.

I sighed and sat down in the crows' nest, staring at the rag that I held loosely in my hands. As long as Jack had ordered me to clean, I might as well stay here, away from everybody. Away from Mary, who I didn't know if she was concerned for me, or still tampering in the affairs of my life. Away from Anamaria, who I was sure was ready to kill me for the vile things I'd said to her. I felt a tiny prick of regret for what I'd said, but pushed it away. She didn't deserve it any more than Mary did, both of them and Jack included were acting in a way they thought would help me, instead of leaving it be. And it was a habit of Anamaria's to goad me into something, this time I had just taken a the bait a bit too eagerly. It was still hard to feel too much remorse for hurting someone who insisted on calling me 'Princess'.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, wondering what in the hell I was going to do. I could talk to Will again, something I desperately wanted, but I was so afraid to. In the silence and the rhythmic rocking of the crows' nest I was able to admit it to myself that I was afraid he would hurt me again, if I let him. It seemed strange to me how Will and I could have gotten to this point, when this time last year he was my best friend, the boy I'd grown up with and the man I'd grown to love helplessly, even as he'd fawned over Elizabeth. It was easier then, I realized, without all the stress that being engaged brought, and then the heartache at suddenly not being engaged added. It was simpler to just love Will from a distance and not have him love me back. It was easier to have him blindly in love with Elizabeth, who at that time was all but promised to the Commodore.

I put a hand over my eyes and realized how close to crying I actually was. Part of me wished I'd never met Will, if this was how it was going to end up - but mostly I wouldn't give him up for anything. I realized, grudgingly, that I had come to think of him as the most important thing in my life long before now, and I wondered how someone I held so dear could end up hurting me so much. I did not feel like the Governor's eldest daughter, the one whom all the nobles talked about behind gloved hands. I did not feel at all like the woman who had run off to fight pirates, the woman who wore men's clothing and snuck out of her father's house. I did not feel like the same woman who dueled with the Commodore and had faired better than most men did, as Gillette said with that amused twinkle in his eyes. I snorted, no, I was not that woman at all anymore.

Now I was a woman who lost a duel to the man she loved, a duel that a few months ago she would have won. Will disarmed me now in a way he hadn't before and I hardly understood it. Where a few months ago I had been the woman who had loved him, yes, but was unconquerable otherwise, now I was the woman who had been subjected to a mockery of what she once was and hardly put up a fight.

"Surely its not as bad as all that," a soft voice said from beside me. I looked up to see Mary, her white face shining with honesty this time that I let my guard down. I let my fingers play over the knot that Will had made over the cut in my palm. I put my head on my knees and hugged them to me, huddled up into as small a thing as I could make myself. I heard Mary shift and move to sit next to me, her arm around my shoulders.

"I really am sorry." she whispered, and it seemed to me that she was on the verge of tears as well. "I never meant for it to hurt you like this - what a terrible friend I have been." she said, and in her gentle way of hers she was leading me to think not of myself. Someone else would have seen it as selfish, but it was Mary's way. She would not force me to talk about how I felt until I was ready to bring it up. I wiped at my eyes hastily and turned to look at her.

"You are not a terrible friend at all, Mary. A terrible friend would not have come with me here." I said. She bit her lip. "I almost didn't." she whispered. I sighed. "But you did, and that's what counts. And what you did…it is not so different from me pushing you at the Commodore like I did, dressing you up and such. So now I suppose we are even."

"No…he didn't hurt me like you hurt." Mary said softly, and I leaned my head on her shoulder as a tear slipped hotly out of the corner of my eye. "This is true." I whispered, and she laughed quietly.

"He said he'd stop asking me." I offered, looking up at her. She looked impassive. I picked my head up and turned to look her in the eyes. "Is that what you wanted?" she said finally. I sighed and shook my head. "Yes. No…I don't think so. I wanted…I want him to stop making me so vulnerable, so afraid. They don't mention how fragile love makes you." I said dejectedly, cursing all the fairytales that my mother had reserved for Elizabeth's tea parties.

"No, I suppose they don't." Mary said. "What are you going to do?" she asked. I stared up at the sky, which was rapidly being strewn with oranges and reds, pinks and further away, deep violets, like bruises. "I don't want him to leave," I said finally. "If he leaves, what choice do I have but to follow him?"

Mary giggled at what must have been the most disgusted look on my face. I smiled as well, listening to how silly I sounded. "You don't have to worry - there is no place he can go." Mary said. "You can maintain your foolish pride a little while yet." she whispered, shoving me playfully. I rolled my eyes but that was the last that was said for a long while.

"Mary?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think I made a mistake? By running away?"

Mary was silent. I waited. "I don't know how to answer that, Christina…I have never been in love, not that I know of. I don't know how I would react if the man I loved, if I saw him kissing another woman. Especially if that woman was my sister, who I'd been jealous of my entire life…"

"Thank you, Mary." I said dryly.

"You had no reason to be so jealous of her, as beautiful as she is. You are naught but her equal." Mary said. I smiled wryly. "And now you try to amend your words, I see." She rolled her eyes at me.

"Can't you see he loves you?" Mary said, almost wistfully. It was my turn to be quiet, not wanting to admit that yes, it seemed evident that he did love me. What then was holding me back? I swore.

"That's a yes." Mary said smartly.

"Damnation, Mary, yes it is! He loves me, I know it!"

"And you love him."

"And I love him. For years now." I said softly and Mary's eyes widened at me. "Surely you knew that, Mary, or have you not been listening all those years?"

"I have been listening, but you never mentioned love! Only that he was the most handsome, the kindest, the strongest, the sweetest and the most romantic boy you'd ever met!"

I glared at her. "I did not say all that! You make me sounds like some simpering girl." I said disgustedly. Mary laughed. "And when were you anything else, Christina?"

"And he was hardly romantic, the blustering idiot that he was a lot of the time. Laughing at me the time I put powder on, pulling me up so brusquely if I'd tripped in the confounded shift I wore! A brute more than a romantic, I think!" I said, grinning along with her.

"Ah, but he helped you up, did he not? That was more than you were used to from a man, back then." Mary said wisely. I pushed my nose up in the air, "He was nothing but a boy, Mary, a little boy trying to be man."

"And now?" Mary asked lowly, another wicked grin fixed on her face, very similar to the one Anamaria wore when she had taunted me. I swallowed.

"Well, you don't expect him to turn into a woman, do you, Mary?" I scoffed, coughing a bit as my tongue tripped over itself. She said nothing but instead was shaking with silent laughter.

We sat again like stones, nothing but the wisps of our hair blowing in the wind. My fingers had not stopped tracing patterns on the bandage around my hand, I noticed, and pulled my hands apart as if they held a burning plate. The sky was now conquered by the violet color and slowly fading into a deeper blue-black cloak of night. I saw the first few stars twinkle like angels' eyes in the sky and wondered if I dared to make a wish. Somehow I felt like I'd already made one.

Mary stood up, pulling me with her after a moment. "He will wait for you, I think, if you are not too harsh with him." she said quietly and turned to go, leaving me once again alone and swallowing hard at the tightness of my throat and the restless confusion of my thoughts.

[A/N: Ta da! Chapter 20! Now that I have sorely neglected my other stories for this one, I must go! There are three pages of the next chapter of TYO up, and a shifty inspiration for TGOO, but they both need writing! R/R please! Ciao.]