Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of the Walt Disney Corporation. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Chapter Thirteen: Fun for the Whole Family

Will had never recalled consuming so much alcohol in his entire life. But the prospect of having a doctor of questionable skill digging about in a bullet wound was enough to drive him to the bottle. By the time Morgan slashed open his shirt, he'd already consumed half the vile tasting liquor, and would have drank more had Jack not been so desperate for some.

The alcohol seemed to fill his head with cotton. His thoughts and movements slowed while his flesh crawled and tingled, numbed by his drunkenness. He felt warm and comfortable, a stark contrast to the shivering mass he'd been just minutes before.

Morgan shook herself out prior to working. She'd forced Will onto his stomach, lying face down on the blankets so the wound was visible. The dim lamp light of the room was hardly what she was used to working with, but it would have to do. All her crewmen were currently focused on destroying the Trailblazer, a task that was using far too much firepower for her tastes. Forcing all other thoughts from her mind, she wiped the coagulated gore from Will's back with a strip of the blanket she'd ripped from under her.

Without so much as a warning, she pulled the rum from Jack with a single tug and poured the remainder of it onto the wound.

Will leapt up in surprise, only to be restrained by Morgan's hand on his shoulder. His adrenaline surged temporarily, but then faded off into oblivion, allowing him to surrender back to the effects of the alcohol. They tugged at his senses, dulling the pain of his shoulder again. Exhaling slowly, he fell back into intoxicated silence.

Jack stared at her in shock. She'd just wasted perfectly good rum.

Morgan ignored him, taking up her tweezers from where she'd left them. Running them through the flame of the lamp, a crude form of sterilization, she waited for them to cool before raising them to Will's back.

"This is going to sting," she said, and he believed her. He dug his fingers into the blankets beneath him in preparation for the pain.

She dug them into his flesh, millimeter by agonizing millimeter, until they came to a halt atop a firm, metallic object. She shifted about on the bed, attempting to get a better view, but couldn't see anywhere past the flesh without better light. "Lift that lamp up," she ordered Jack. It took him a minute to comply, but he finally did as she bade him, slowly raising the light higher and higher so she could see.

The image was worse than anything his imagination could have come up with. He'd seen men blown in half on the high seas when they took cannon balls to the waists. He'd seen others stabbed and shot to a point beyond recognition, some in such tiny pieces it was impossible to discern whether they had once been human or not. But nothing could have prepared him for his little half sister performing impromptu surgery on William Turner.

Even more disturbing were the images on both the doctor and the patient's faces. Morgan was clinical, professional, her face forged from stone. Nothing changed on it for a moment. Will, however, was in pure agony. The rum was doing very little for the pain, and it only took a few minutes before he had stopped humming and started grunting from the procedure.

"I've almost got it," Morgan said in a bad attempt to comfort him, just as she pushed the tweezers down another centimeter. Will groaned, pitching himself to the side unconsciously in a weak attempt to escape. She tightened her grip on the tweezers and pulled, causing Will to cry out again.

The bullet pulled free from Will's skin. Morgan tossed it to the floor and pressed the rag over the bloodied hole in her patient's skin, watching the blood slowly seep into the already soiled fabric. Jack lowered the lamp, eyes always on William's. Somehow, in the midst of treating what might be the most painful injury the blacksmith had ever suffered, he was still conscious, floundering somewhere between full awareness and complete senselessness. His grip on the floor loosened, and it seemed like the rum had finally come to the aid of his pain stricken mind. His breathing evened and body went loose, completely spent from the previous exertion.

She was even faster with the sutures, and less painful. Her well trained fingers loaded the needle and had it in William's flesh before she could even warn him. His muscles seized and twitched as she pierced the skin and pulled it together, reforming the skin.

She was finished just minutes after she had begun. With a quick snip of the scissors, she had tied off the stitches and was leaving Will to rest.

The silence that fell over the two was deafening. Jack couldn't remember how long it had been since they were last together, and Morgan didn't seem to care much. All he knew was that he hadn't taken his eyes off her since she began, and for what felt like an eternity, he hadn't said a word.

They couldn't meet each other's stares after that, and resorted to coughs and grunts as they attempted to restart a conversation. Morgan cleaned up her supplies, placing them neatly into one of her many trunks. Jack pulled at the fraying edges of the blankets.

Will passed out.

"So Bootstrap left you the boat, did he?" Jack asked; a feeble attempt at conversation, but an attempt nonetheless.

"In a way, yes," Morgan put her coat back on and closed the trunk, rising to leave. "You can stay with him if you like. I'll fetch you when we've hailed the Pearl."

She left the room.

Jack growled and rolled his eyes, mocking Morgan under his breath. "You can stay with him if you like," he said in a high pitched squeal, imitating her haughty air. Casting one last glance at the whelp to make sure he was breathing, Jack sauntered after her.

Explosions echoed from all sides of the Wayfarer, and as Jack emerged from the cabins, he found himself in the middle of a war zone. Cannon and pistol fire lit up the darkened waters of Port Royal as three ships engaged each other in crude combat. Ridley had brought the Wayfarer round behind the Trailblazer, giving Morgan's long nines free reign over the ship's stern. The Pearl was cleverly positioned further off towards the Wayfarer's bow, out of reach of either ships' cannons as she hurled an onslaught of her own aritllayr.

Morgan had finally taken up her post as Captain, pulling her pistol from its place on her belt and taking out what few Trailblazer crewmen she could. They had amassed on the high deck when they noticed the Wayfarer's ambush and resorted to pistol fire as a last resort. Crouched low behind the ledge on the Wayfarer's portside, she barely noticed Jack running towards her until he had slid next to her on all fours.

"I'm going after the Sparrow treasure!" he shouted over the barrage of cannon fire. The Trailblazer's marksmen were poor shots anyways, and every time they fired, a splash could be heard in the distance.

She fired once more, causing a clumsy footed crewman to fall over the ledge into the water below.

"WHAT!" she asked, taking time to converse as she reloaded.

"I'M GOING AFTER THE SPARROW TREASURE!"

The captain was at the helm. She fired towards him and missed.

"Blast!" she cursed, dropping back down into her hiding spot again. She started to reload.

"THE SPARROW TREASURE DOESN'T EXIST!" she shouted back.

"THAT'S A MATTER OF OPINION!" he said. "I've half a map that states otherwise."

"Jack, that map was father's way of buggering off for months at a time," she replied, rising to fire again. A Trailblazer marksman nearly got her in the head, but the bullet whizzed past and only singed a lock of her hair. Lips curled in a snarl, she fired and shot him in the heart. She sat down again to load her pistol. "There never was a treasure, and there never will be a treasure. It was all just a bedtime story."

Before Jack could answer, Morgan had turned her attention on the upper deck. "RIDLEY!" she shouted. He emerged from his spot nearest the helm, rifle resting on the floor beneath him. "Head down below and bring up a few more marksmen for the upper decks. We've wasted enough cannon balls on these morons as it is."

"Aye," he said with a nod. "Consider it done Captain."

He retreated to the lower levels. Morgan turned her attention back to Jack.

"Bateman's assassins have as much brains as they have marksmanship," she commented dryly, and fired again, this time hitting a man square between the eyes.

"If I can get to this treasure, it will be enough to pay off ten Bateman's."

Morgan glared at him incredulously.

"Father never gave me a map piece," she spat. "You know that."

"Yes, of course. But father gave Bootstrap a piece. Bootstrap gave you the ship, so he must have also passed on any other heirlooms he might have had on him."

Jack knew his thinking was slightly flawed. Bootstrap could have taken the map piece to Davy Jones' locker with him. But Jack was more confident with the idea that Morgan had it than with Bootstrap dying with it. Bootstrap lived by the mantra, "Waste not, want not." If he had given Morgan the ship, he had no doubt passed along any other worldly possessions with it.

"Bootstrap gave me the ship by default, Jack, not by choice," she inspected the upper deck of the Trailblazer with mild interest, especially since the cannons were starting to fall silent. The Trailblazer was several feet lower on the water, and she could hear screams from inside for more bailers. "Chain of command dictated that I become acting captain. And under the circumstances of his death, I didn't think to search for any such map."

Jack was crushed. He cast a glance toward his sister, who was glancing uneasily at the Trailblazer again. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. She hadn't looked at him since they had started talking. And while they were engaged in combat, something about her attitude caught him off guard. He didn't think he was being crazy either. She was being unnecessarily shady with him.

The cannon fire fell silent at last as the Trailblazer capsized, falling with a large splash on her Starboard side. Both remaining ships rode high on the waves for a moment before stabilizing. Jack's ears were ringing from the battle. Morgan sighed in relief, taking a moment to relax before she looked back to him.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I can't help you."

He stared into her eyes for the briefest of moments, and found that even then she could not meet his stare. She turned away from him, staring off into space instead.

Rising, he regained his usual swagger. "I should have thought as much," he rolled his eyes. "Guess I've got no use for this then."

He pulled the map piece from his shirt. He kept his eyes on Morgan's reaction as he extended his arm over the edge of the ship and released the piece to the wind.

At first she was emotionless, watching him with as much interest as she had the Trailblazer in its final moments. But the second the wind catch the scrap of parchment she leapt to her feet.

"NO!" she shouted, and ran for it, just as the slip of paper fluttered to the ocean below.