Hello everyone. The answers to the reviews are at the bottom. To Cal and Hooliday1081 - thank you so much for reviewing!
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The mermaids woke him up. They touched his face, his hands, pulling him into the water.
"No." Albeit somewhat regretfully, Jack Sparrow pushed himself up and out of their reach. "Can't breathe under water like you. Remember?" He asked.
"Peter Pan is really here." One of them remarked.
"Yes. He is. I am." Then he thought of something else. "My friends, the people that came here with me they are under my protection. They can't breathe under water, don't take them under, alright?" The mermaids nodded and promised and slipped back under the water's protection.
Jack Sparrow looked around the campsite. It was early yet and most of the pirates were still asleep. To his delight, Jack noticed that the pain Tinkerbell had talked about the day before, had lessened. It was perhaps because it had been new before but he was used to it now and the pulling sensation itself was a familiar one to him. The Pearl had pulled at him in the exact same way for ten long years, long enough for him to have gotten used to the sensation and regard it as only a familiar if constant annoyance. He smiled as he saw Elizabeth headed in his direction.
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AnaMaria caught Will Turner as the man came back from washing up in the woods in the early morning.
"Will." She called and pulled him away from the prying curious eyes of the rest of the pirate crew and under the cover of the trees. Will Turner looked at the other woman in confusion. They didn't usually have a lot to say to each other and whatever she did say to him. Didn't really need the kind of privacy that she wanted now. "Do you remember those dreams that we both shared? How well do you remember Neverland?" AnaMaria asked softly.
"I… pretty well I would say." He answered finally, after much thought to overcome the abruptness of the unusual question.
"But would you recognize it if you saw it?" She pressed.
"Ye… I think so." Thinking back on it now, his memories of that time were pretty clear regardless of the fact that they had happened years ago and in a dream.
"Is this Neverland?" The first mate of the Black Pearl asked Will bluntly.
"Oh." The other managed to utter, completely speechless.
"I saw something very strange last night." She continued quietly yet urgently. "Most everyone was asleep and Jack got up to got to the edge of the water and I just wanted to make sure that he was alright so I followed him and … I couldn't hear what he said, he was saying something, but there was a crocodile. It was so large. It came out of the water and just lay down beside him. The thing is, the reason I'm asking you this question is because the crocodile was ticking. Loudly, as though it had a clock inside of it. None of us have something that could tick so loudly. And I'm not sure if I remember correctly… but didn't Captain Hook get eaten by a ticking crocodile?" AnaMaria finished in a rush, sounding uncertain and scared in a kind of excites anxiety.
William Turner Junior thought about what he was going to say for a long while before he answered. He had been so sure that he would know the infamous island if he ever saw it again but up till just then, it had always been a hypothetical question. It had all been nice and good talking about it with AnaMaria but he never actually imagined being back. Regardless of anything, it had always been just a dream. A fanciful, childhood dream and it had never been real.
"Neverland… AnaMaria, it was just a dream." He told her. "The island was never real. We may have shared the dreams but dreams were all that they were."
"Then how do you explain what I heard? That crocodile was ticking Will. It wasn't just in my mind."
"Then maybe, maybe it's the island that is doing this. Maybe it's playing with our minds somehow. He still tried to find some kind of a different explanation.
"But what if it is Neverland?" AnaMaria asked a little desperately. "What if it wasn't just dreams?" She had sat up for most of the night thinking about it, thoughts twirling in a whirl and she had come no closer to a solution. One thing was certain though and that was that it was impossible for two people to have the same dream without a supernatural explanation involved.
"Then this will all be very strange." Will confessed. "You really think that this might really be Neverland?" He questioned.
"Maybe." Ana sighed. "I don't know anymore."
"Do you think…" Will began then stopped. He seemed to be pausing in the middle of speaking a lot in this conversation. "If this is Neverland, do you think that… Peter Pan is still here?" He asked hesitatingly. Peter Pan was something of a legend to him. Something like Captain Jack Sparrow was to Elisabeth before they met. Someone to emulate and admire, someone completely shrouded in mystery. Even in the dreams, on the island when he had lived and played together with the other boy, Peter Pan had always been somewhat removed from the other children. He had been a good and fun leader and maybe because of that they had often viewed him as just a leader instead of one of them. Seeing him again would be strange, Will decided; Peter Pan still a child, AnaMaria and him, Wendy and Slightly all grown up. But perhaps he wouldn't remember them. Will remembered the problems that Peter Pan had had with his memory, sometimes as far as forgetting who he was talking to and what about form one moment to the next.
"Yes. He will." AnaMaria said confidently and matter of factly. "He's Peter Pan, it where he belongs."
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"Remember how we were stranded together on an island almost just like this one not too, long ago?" Elizabeth asked. She was laying on her back on the warm sand, Jack Sparrow stretched out beside her. She had awoken a little earlier the most that morning, took some berries form the breakfast pile others had gathered even earlier that morning and went to greet her Captain. After a leisurely breakfast, they now relaxed on the beach. Because that is what people do on vacation; relax the entire day. Jack Sparrow of all people had no complaints about going back to sleep after having spent a nice night doing just that.
"Yes. You burnt my rum!" He exclaimed in mock anger as though still upset over that fact.
"Well I'm not going to burn any this time." She told him firmly.
"Not stranded this time luv." She was informed.
"We don't have that much rum either this time." Elizabeth added. "And it looks like we'll be here much longer then we were there. I really don't want to deprive you of your beloved rum for so long." Captain Jack Sparrow smirked. The truth was that he didn't actually like rum all that much and definitely didn't drink as much of it as he professed. It just gave him something to do, something else and more trivial to worry about when he needed to take his mind off of things and it added a lot to his overall persona.
"We've got enough for now." He told the young Mrs. Turner.
He actually really, truly liked this. This lying in the sun, feeling soft, hot sand underneath his body, relaxing in total peace. Somewhere else, someone was talking… to him?
"Captain!" He lifted a hand lazily as though to swat them away. "Captain, we need to talk to you." He squinted through the bright glare of the sun at whoever was rude enough to wake him up and recognized AnaMaria and Will standing side by side, united in question. A quick glance at Elizabeth proved that she had also fallen asleep and was definitely still asleep beside him. "Captain, I'm sorry but we need to talk. It's important." AnaMaria apologized actually looking apologetic for a change. Sighing, Captain Jack got up from hi comfortable spot of the ground and lead his two crewmates away form the sleeping girl and under some shade.
"What is it?" He asked, a little worried. His first mate knew not to wake him her Captain unless it was something urgent and important. Will looked at AnaMaria, urging her to start.
"I think I know why we are here." AnaMaria began and Jack nodded at her to continue. "I don't know if you remember but Will and I, on the way here in the boat, we talked about these shared dreams that we both had when we were children. They were about an island just like this one. We called it Neverland. And there was this boy there who called himself Peter Pan." She paused again. "We think that we're here for some reason that's connected to these dreams that we've had. We both recognize this island as Neverland." She stopped, finished, happy to have been the one to have figured this out. Captain Jack Sparrow blinked at her thoughtfully.
"We for sure don't want to rule anything out…" He said slowly. "Have you talked about this to anyone else?" He asked suddenly. Will shook his head.
"No. Just between ourselves." He told him.
"Oh. All right. Well…" Jack swayed in his place for a moment. "It could be just this island that's doing this, playing with us, making us believe things that aren't true, playing with us." He suggested, mirroring what Will had said only moments before. "Or maybe it only looks like the other one. I mean it's all vegetation in the Caribbean. It's bound to have something that looks the same as someplace else."
"Not a ticking croc!" Ana burst out. Jack stopped swaying, fully Captain, instantly for a moment cured of all movement.
"What?" He asked curiously.
"I saw you with the croc yesterday night Jack. And I heard it tick. You can't tell me it didn't. And you can't tell me that two islands will both have ticking crocodiles." She insisted.
"Oh." Captain Jack Sparrow swayed again, thinking. "So do you think that the island will tell us what it wants of us soon?" He asked them finally.
"Peter Pan might know." AnaMaria said. "He was always here, it was his. If anyone would know anything about it, he would."
"Alright. We'll watch out for him then." Jack said in a voice that ended the conversation.
"Peter Pan never wanted to grow up, Captain. We should be watching out for a boy. A boy that can fly." His first mate advised her Captain and Jack nodded as though not surprised at all.
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"So what do I do now? When is it time for them to know?" Jack asked into the morning air when his friends wandered away, not exactly expecting an answer, yet was not surprised when it came form behind him.
"Soon Peter, soon." Tinkerbell murmured lying a gently hand on his shoulder. Then she was gone too and Jack flopped down onto his original place on the sand beside Elizabeth and thought deeply about his current wonderful predicament.
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Holliday1081 – Thank you so much for listening to Cal and reading my story. I love your stories and I feel so special that you are reading mine. Thank you – this idea just called to me, I had to write it. I'm glad you like. I solved the pain problem as you can see – I really didn't want to have him in constant pain for the remainder of the tale. Thank you for bringing it to my attention and I'm not sure with the choosing yet but we'll see. 8-) Again, thank you for reviewing!
Cal - Wow. I've been eagerly awaiting your review ever since I posted chapter five – a couple of hours. Thank you for replying. Nope – not scared away. It took me a while to start writing fan fiction after only to read about it; you could always try and see what comes out. Your muse might surprise you yet. 8-)!
I hope that I capture them well. Writing fan fiction and capturing the characters properly is not as easy as it looks as I have discovered recently.
How would I 'toot my own horn' to anybody? I don't know – I'm just writing here! If you would, that would be great, I really would like people to read my story. Thank you in advance!
I really do appreciate your comments so much. Despite the horrible way that I review – by saying; this is good, please update, your way of reviewing makes the author think about the story and about how to make it better. Seeing it through someone else's eyes you get a different viewpoint and see things that you might not have put that much emphasis on but perhaps should have or the opposite.
I'm so glad that you watched and liked the movie. I never thought about it that way but you're right – watching it and having my story in mind would make a big difference. Wow, I feel so special 8-).
Who wrote a story about Jack holding Ana as a baby? Was it good? (The fic) I am constantly on the lookout for something really good to read.
Chapter five – I don't think that Ana was working that much. Mostly supervising. Besides what is there to do? I was thinking about it and came up with wood, berries, and tents. Pretty much it. I don't think that Jack was working either. He was just talking to his crew like a good friendly captain would. As mentioned before – I don't think that there is a lot to do.
Uh oh did what Jack was thinking about Ana telling him things part come across wrong? What I meant was that he knew she would tell him things. He knows that he can trust her. No question about that. But he is still hurt that she left all those years ago. Oh I just went back to reread that line and you're right, I can see where you thought that. The thing is he know internally that he can trust her even if he hasn't realized it yet but even if he didn't, she is a good first mate and would tell him things so he can rely on her. One of the themes of this story is betrayal so he is constantly going to be thinking things like that. Jack isn't threatening her though, he feels betrayed by her, and she just doesn't realize it yet.
Yes, the crew would probably have been running around otherwise, looking frantically for something to do to pass the time.
I'm glad that you liked the croc scene. I didn't actually mean it to seem that the croc said that – just as an observation but I can see how it came across like that and that works too. Lol. You see how hard writing is? Lol
Your two questions – 1. Wow. I don't know, I didn't think of it at all. Thank you for pointing it out. Since I think I changed it all around somewhat, I don't think that Tink will be jealous of Wendy but happy for Peter instead. She seemed proud of what he made of himself so maybe she is a type of mother figure to him now.
2. The way I was thinking of hook was as a role model for Jack. It's how he knew how to be a good captain when he woke up again in the real world. Hook is gone – eaten by a croc in the end, right? But I want to bring him back (because this is Neverland and everything is possible) for Peter to say thank you. Father figure?
Tell me what you think. And such a long answer to a review is probably illegal. Oy. Lol. So I had to write a really long chapter to compensate.
