A/N: Ok here is chapter 17!! Hope you all enjoy it!! The return of Jack!!! YAY! Thankyou soooooo much to all my reviewers!! Keep up the good reviewing coz it gives me motive to write!!

Disclaimer: No not yet but still working on it!

Enjoy....and review!

Chapter 17: Reunited

Jack spun round and I watched as the anger from threatening Dagger vanished in an instant. Anger, shock, excitement, happiness. I watched them sweep over his face one by one.

"Annie!" he said finally dropping his cutlass to his side and rushing forwards to hug me.

However he didn't have to go far as I interpreted his move and ran to meet him in the middle. It felt so good. To finally be back with him, the warmth of his arms wrapped tightly around me. I inhaled deeply and smiled as I sucked in the familiar smell of sea mist and rum.

His hand ran up and down my back in a soothing fashion and I was surprised to find that it sent a wave of shivers down my spine. Good shivers.

A cough erupted from behind us, snapping us out of the clouds and back down to reality. Dagger stood trying desperately to hide the cough by looking into the corner. The man was clearly petrified out of his mind. Bless him!

I felt no longer angry at him but instead pitied him like a crying child. My heart was full of warmth, happiness and relief and it was all due to the return of Jack.

"Well we won't be needing you anymore," Jack said trying to sound polite.

I smiled, "Aye, thanks yea for your help but..." I stopped and stood shocked as the man broke down in tears on the floor.

He desperately clawed at the floor, his nails digging into the dirty wooden structure. Sobs erupted from his mouth and tears streamed from his face making a pool on the floor.

Jack and I exchanged wary glances.

"Please!...please....don't...k...k...kill me!!" the man stuttered, still crying into the floor.

My eyes widened as I realised why he was breaking down in front of us. By saying 'we won't need you anymore' and 'thanks for your help but...' the man had though that we were going to dispose of him and cut his life short by a quick blow to the head with the blade of a cutlass. I snapped the image out of my head,

"No! We're not going to kill you..." but remembering I was a 'fearsome pirate' I added, "...so long as not a word of this escapes."

"Oh not a word! Not a word!" the man shouted in a shrill voice, the puddle of tears growing larger.

Jack gave me a weary eye which was hiding a sly smile.

I turned towards the door, "coming?" I asked Jack with an amused look on my face and one eyebrow raised.

Jack followed me out onto the street and we both started talking at once. Both of us ranting about each and everything that had happened to us since we last saw each other was not the best way to talk as neither of us could hear a word of what the other was saying. Suddenly we both stopped, and laughed.

I stood with my arms folded in an entertained way and studied the man before me. Nothing much had changed about him. The red bandana secured tightly around his forehead still flapped in the breeze, his dirty white shirt still lay two thirds of the way buttoned up showing his manly chest underneath, and his dreadlocks and braids still hung the exact same way I remembered them to be. His eyes still twinkled in the sunlight giving away his love and excitement for the sea. The only things that were different about him was just under his eyes. They were dark and weary as though he hadn't slept in weeks.

I had a sudden urge to kiss him.

"What?" he questioned, looking at me sideways.

I snapped the image of Jack and I kissing out of my mind and put it down to the fact that I was just excited to see him. "Just reminding myself what you look like," I said looking him up and down, "yup I remember now." I let out a giggle, as if I could ever forget what Jack looked like!

"And?" he asked with a cheeky grin plastered on his face and a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Sweaty, dirty pirate," I mused. He spluttered and we both burst out laughing. Both of us knew how excited the other was.

I took a step forwards and we walked down the street in the direction of the nearest tavern.

"So what happened to you afterwards?" Jack asked as we walked.

I began explaining everything. How I was captured by the Red Coats, how Gilette helped me escape, how I was smothered in gifts and finally how I stood for an hour and a half in the pouring rain waiting for his arrival.

To my disappointment he laughed. "I wondered why you were soaked!"

I shot him a scowl but couldn't keep it on my face for long and Jack watched as it crinkled into a smile and soon I was laughing again at something I had been so angry about just ten minutes ago.

We entered the tavern, which had miraculously appeared in front of us, and edged our way thorough the morning throng of pirates who had assembled for rum, rum and more rum. Some lay slumped already onto the table with hands outstretched before them grouping for the dregs in the bottom of their bone dry mugs. Others sat in corners with their shifty eyes, one hand rested firmly on a cutlass hilt or gun barrel. But most stood fighting in the main part of the Inn. Fists, feet, cutlasses and gunshot's flared everywhere accompanied by shouts of anger, shouts of pain and shouts of just plain shouting. Yup...Tortuga was much the same as it ever was.

Choosing a table at the very back of the room Jack and I sat each with a mug of rum secured firmly in our hands, both of us smiling.

"So what about you?" I asked after both of us had had a long drink from the metallic tankards.

"Well I woke up on some deserted island just like you really. Managed to lash myself a couple of sea turtles and ride my way here," he said matter-of-factly with a sly grin on his face.

I gave him one of those sideways looks which bored into him saying that I didn't believe a word of it.

"Ok..." he said finally, weakening under my glare, "I hitched a lift with the Rum Runners again. Managed to barter my way over by trading in some odds and ends."

"Why didn't you just tell them that you're the Sparrow?" I said outraged that he had to pay.

"The Rum Runners? They wouldn't even give the King of England a trip over the channel for free if he asked!!" he laughed at my ignorance.

I mumbled and stuck my head back into my rum only to shoot it straight back up again.

"Hang on...where's the Pearl?!?"

His faced suddenly dawned on the fact that neither of us had come with the Black Pearl. We both stared at each other.

"Its your ship! Didn't it dawn on you when I told you I came via Gillette that I wasn't on the Pearl?" I asked, shocked.

"I was too excited to see yea to notice!!! Uh...I mean...." He trailed off obviously trying to keep 'fearsome pirate' image. A lot of people do that nowadays!

"Oh great!" I said sarcastically, "We're back to stage one!"