Chapter 23

I knew my eyes were open, but it was so dark that I wouldn't have known the difference if they were closed. Swallowing down the panic, I listened carefully. Not only was it dark, but it was very, very quiet.

"Grandma?"

Nothing.

"Sparrow?"

Nope.

"Noose?"

I lowered myself carefully to my knees and reached out with a hand. Sparrow should have been within arm's reach. But he wasn't.

"Mary Alice? Albert? Elizabeth? Will? Somebody?"

Suddenly I realized I could hear breathing. No. That was my panicked breathing. And that thumping was my heart. I crawled forward just the tiniest bit. Nothing. And I was sure there was a wall over to my right, except there wasn't one anymore.

What if this was it? What if I'd been struck by lightning and didn't know it? What if…. Maybe I was dead? Could this be what being dead was like? Ohmigod. The panic I'd been feeling gave way to full-blown terror.

And full-blown terror gave way to the realization that I had to pee. Probably if I was dead, I would be beyond things like having to pee. Now I had a dilemma. I had to pee and even though I thought I was alone, maybe I wasn't. At least I was alive. If I lived long enough to find a bathroom, I was sure things would be alright.

I crawled forward again. Still no wall. Still nothing. What happened to the room? What happened to my family? My friends? Hell, what happened to me?

I stopped crawling and sat Indian-style, trying to think this through. Had I left them? Or did they leave me? And did it even matter? At least I wasn't wearing that dress anymore. I reached down and double-checked that I was still dressed. I let out a small sigh and realized I was relaxing, just a little bit.

That's when everything went blindingly white.

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"I think I've just lost at least ten percent of my hearing."

I cracked open an eye and found myself looking at a perfectly healthy, uninjured Diesel. Opening the other eye, I realized we were in my apartment. Rex was running around in his wheel and the Devils were on the television. I cut my eyes to the left. Everything looked normal. When I looked back at Diesel, he was staring at me with an inscrutable expression.

"What the hell just happened?" I demanded.

"The Devils lost. Again." He dropped down next to me on the couch. "And you yelled."

A lot of thoughts ran through my head at once and I decided to try the one I liked best. "Was it a dream?"

"Was what a dream?"

"Sparrow. Junior."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, sweet cheeks? Sorry. Nope." Diesel leaned back and cracked his knuckles. "Long story short, some reinforcements got called in. Junior escaped, but we managed to send your granny, Lula, the kid and the fat guy back home. And no, they won't remember meeting all your friends from the past."

I blinked. "You can do that?"

"I just told you we did. Now," he took a deep breath. "Here's the not so great part. A few things got screwed up, so you have to go back to 1698 until we can straighten out the past and the future."

"I am not going back there," I protested. Why would I want to? The clothes were awful and there was a man with a wig who wanted to marry me. Of course, there was a cop with a badge in my present who wanted to marry me. If you looked at it that way, I wasn't safe anywhere.

"Sorry, sweet cheeks. I can't give you a choice."

I looked around my apartment. "Why can't I stay here?"

Diesel grinned. "Because this isn't your apartment. It just looks like it."

"And I repeat, why can't I stay here?"

"Them's are the orders," Diesel shrugged. "Look at it this way, you get to play with Noose for a little while. Or Sparrow. Or both. Frankly, I don't really wanna know. Personally, I'd stick with Noose. He's a little stiff, but at least he's got all his original teeth."

"But –" I started to protest.

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"But what, darlin'?" Sparrow asked me.

I blinked and looked around. We were standing on a beach, the sun beating down on us. I was still in my jeans and T-shirt. "How did I get here?"

"I asked myself the same question," came the unmistakable dry tones of Norrington from behind me. "Your infuriating acquaintance, Diesel, refused to answer. He did, however, inform me that Sparrow's ship will be coming for us in a few days."

"Where exactly are we?"

Sparrow grinned. "A little islet where I've been, uh, marooned once or twice before. Of course, back then, there was a tidy stash of rum. It breaks me heart to tell you there's none here, now."

"So…" I cut my eyes from one to the other. "You both remember everything?"

Norrington stood there, wearing only his frilly white shirt and a slightly pissed off expression. "Everything."

Including his proposal. It was going to be a long three days.

The end. For now.