A/N: On the off-chance that any of you have taste in men that is as questionable as mine, I just started a Pavi Largo/OC story over in the Repo! The Genetic Opera fandom. Because apparently my brain just loves a guy who steals faces to wear. Listen, we all love a bad boy. It's an entire world away from James Norrington, I cannot lie, but…uh…variety is the spice of life and all that. If you've never seen that movie, I also highly recommend it so long as you're fine with a bit of gore.

When the storm hit The Interceptor, Jack sent Theo below deck with a face and tone both that offered little temptation when it came to the thought of arguing. Admittedly, she wasn't sure whether it was because she - or, rather, her knowledge - was too valuable to go flying overboard, or just down to the fact that if she remained up top she'd probably just get in the way of the sailors with actual experience. She flitted mentally between the two reasons depending on how well her ego was holding up over the course of the night. Fortunately, her ego was hardly her biggest problem. Down here in one of the cabins she was shielded from the rain and the waves washing over the ship, minus a few leaks here and there, but there was no shelter to be found anywhere from the violent waves that hurtled the ship around like it was a bloody bouncy ball.

At first Theo had sat her arse down directly on the floor so that she couldn't be otherwise flung onto it, as she might've been if she tried to sit on the bed or in a chair. However, when she did so and then looked around to see all of the furniture that might topple over and crush her, she instead chose to stand, clinging to an errant length of rope that she suspected was attached to the wall for occasions exactly like these. During the most calm moments it was like being on the most erratic subway ride to ever exist, but usually it provided the sort of experience that even the most rich amusement parks struggled to provide. Jerking, breakneck rises and jolts that felt like they risked sending the ship fully vertical, followed by a stomach-dropping moment when it crested a particularly high wave and dropped down towards the water on the other side, the impact of it hitting the water once again feeling almost enough to submerge the ship.

Mostly, Theo endured it with closed eyes. Somewhere along the way, she'd doused any candles in the cabin for fear of them overturning and setting the place ablaze - they were having enough problems with water to start adding fire to the mix - so there was little difference between having her eyes open and having them shut in her windowless room. Some treacherous thoughts tried to break their way through, somehow breaking through the din of the storm. They survived it - there was no doubt about that…in the movie. Vague memories flitted around in her mind of Jack up at the helm with a manic grin on his face as rain and waves both lashed down upon him. It wasn't even presented as much of a threat, just a natural pitfall of sailing. But what if her presence changed something? What if just by being here, she delayed their progress by one or two waves, sending them into the path of a tidal wave that they would've otherwise bypassed?

Thankfully, she knew those thoughts for what they were - fear. Plain and simple. So she kept her eyes screwed shut, she clung to her piece of rope, and she rode it out - greeting each wave objectively rather than with fear. 'Ah, that was a bad one rather' than 'oh god, please let it be over soon'. It worked, too. Of course, it helped that she was down below and not up above facing the whole thing head-on. After a hand-to-hand scrap with a would-be murderer, enduring a storm in a dark room seemed laughable.

By the time it finally started to die down she was almost convincing herself that she was enjoying the whole thing - like it was a rollercoaster. But then the door to her room slammed open, revealing William Turner illuminated by a gas lamp in the doorway, soaked through and utterly pissed off.

"Do we save Elizabeth?" He didn't ask so much as demand.

His voice was a ragged shout, but it was difficult to say whether that was down to his foul mood, or just the storm raging outside. It had never really occurred to Theo to be intimidated by Will, not in the slightest. And even now, she wasn't consciously so - she didn't recoil, nor did she brace herself for any kind of fight. Not a physical one, anyway. But she was left feeling a little foolish for waving him off with the role of wounded puppy in her mind - and rightfully so. She already knew of the bind Jack would get himself in by underestimating the blacksmith, so why was she here doing the same now? There was just something…unassuming about him. His demeanour, not his looks. Sighing, she let go of the rope to brush some imaginary fluff from her shirt, only to be sent sprawling for the rope again the moment the ship jolted beneath their feet. Will, however, barely stumbled. Maybe Jack was right about pirate being in his blood.

"I can't tell you," she hoped her expression conveyed the truth of the statement, and not that she was just trying to be difficult "You know I can't. Even if I wanted to, I'm under orders from our captain not to breathe a word of what I know to anybody."

…Anybody but him, that was. It didn't seem a helpful detail, though. She gave Will her best apologetic look to try to take the insult out of the injury. Maybe it worked, too, for while he did frown at her, it wasn't as harsh as she'd expected.

"I'm not asking how - nor will I ask when. Only…if. If this is all for nothing."

At his show of vulnerability, Theo felt her heart thaw as far as he was concerned…just a little. More than she'd like, too. The doubt wasn't something she'd ever seen - nor the fear. Just the determination, like it never even occurred to him that he might fail. But she supposed that in the absence of an Irishwoman who claimed to know the future, he had to rely on more mundane tactics - like positivity. Ugh. Shit, if she had somebody who knew exactly how her time here would pan out, she'd be grilling them for details the same way right now.

But if she was going to answer, she had to do so carefully. Looking away from the lamplight and into the pitch black of the room, she considered it for a moment before finally meeting his intense gaze.

"You'll save her. You'll succeed," she said.

The difference in wording between his question and her answer was subtle, but she had to hope he'd see it. That he'd more than prove he wasn't the simpleton Jack so easily dismissed him as. Eyes remaining glued to his face, she watched as Will's own eyes widened, and then narrowed again. Theo nodded slowly in response to the unvoiced question that he posed.

And just like that, any hostility drained from his posture, leaving him suddenly looking so much younger as his features smoothed and his shoulders dropped. Just when the silence - or, well, lack of talking, given how the storm still waged war against the ship outside - threatened to become awkward, he nodded slowly.

"Thank you, Miss Byrne," and it sounded sincere, too, even if he had to shout it.

"Theo," she corrected with a rueful look "And this conversation never happened."

He gave a nod that was all earnestness and sincerity, and then he surprised her - he held out his hand for her to shake. Blinking at it for just a moment, Theo couldn't help but laugh, and then she did so - although her other hand still held fast to the rope.

"I should return," water dripped in a constant stream from the ends of his hair, but he appeared renewed - then he cast a dubious look about the cabin "Shall I leave the lamp here?"

"No, I'm…I'm going to sleep soon."

The look on his face said he knew she was full of it, but he did not argue.

If there was any woman - well, any decent woman - who could get by in the company of Jack Sparrow, James reasoned, it would be Theodora. That thought offered him precisely one minute of comfort before he had to stop and ask himself what getting by actually looked like in the company of said brigand. Especially where a beautiful woman was concerned. But Theodora, much like Elizabeth, was not limited to beauty when it came to what she could boast of - and so he was left hoping that she was currently managing to walk a sort of tightrope line of being amusing or useful enough to Sparrow to keep herself safe, but not so amusing as to be captivating, or to tempt him to…

That wasn't a thought worth finishing. If the bastard did lay a hand on her, James would do everything in his power to pursue a sentence far more brutal than a hanging - that much he vowed.

Their efforts in their search for Elizabeth were so tireless that one should think he'd have been dead on his feet once it came time for the few hours of rest that Governor Swann insisted he take each night. But it was not to be. By day his thoughts were consumed by the prospect of rescuing Elizabeth, and by night they turned to Theodora - although not in the hopelessly uncouth way that it sounded. Her humour, the wry smile she often gave him that suggested she was holding back a particularly dry or biting comment - thank God, even the strange little songs she sang under her breath when she thought nobody was listening.

It was only natural, though, he supposed, to be so preoccupied. After all, she was in his care and during the daylight hours their efforts to find and rescue Elizabeth were utterly tireless. So tireless that he could not spare any resources to divert towards finding Theodora, too. God, why did that feel like some sort of slight towards her? But his hands were hopelessly and utterly tied. The general consensus was that finding Elizabeth would mean finding Turner, Sparrow, and Theodora too — after all, they all hunted the same target. Fighting that consensus was a battle he could not hope to win. How could he argue that they should divert resources away from saving the Governor's daughter to the face of the Governor himself?

Still, the temptation plagued him. Every night when he stepped into his cabin - to make his men think he was wrestling in a few hours of rest, even if he didn't actually do so - his shoulders slumped, and guilt plagued him that he had not done anything to try to save Theodora. That he should've sent a smaller team of men to the known pirate ports in the area - to Tortuga, for the love of god, even almost a thousand miles away to Nassau, if that might bloody well help - on the off-chance that she'd been discovered and promptly abandoned there. Plans such as those were more fantasies than plans, however, and each and every time when he was forced to cease entertaining the prospect of them, he was left only with hope. And, of course, guilt.

On more than one occasion he'd mentally remarked to himself that the Irishwoman would be the death of him. Usually when he found her bizarre habits so painfully endearing that he had to revert to exasperation to hold back a smile. Unfortunately, now he feared it would prove true.

The Isla de Muerta was every bit as spooky as the name implied. Black rock that only just peaked out of the fog that it was cloaked in, Theo fought the urge to hug her arms to herself as it drifted into sight on the horizon. Happily (or maybe unhappily), it seemed the crew weren't unaffected by the sight, either. As The Interceptor began to pick its way carefully through the innumerable shipwrecks that poked out of the water, most of them were gathered around the sides of the ship, inspecting their surroundings in a silence that felt like it had been impressed upon them by the island itself.

For the most part, they'd all kept their distance from her thanks to Jack's little 'seer' comment back in Tortuga. Part of her was almost tempted to think that had been a deliberate move on his part - enforcing some sort of distance so that she mightn't let anything slip. The problem was, with Jack it was often difficult to tell when he was being sly, and when he was just being an arse. It would've royally pissed her off, had he not mastered the art of pulling it off in such a charming manner.

Oh, they were pleasant enough, just…distant. Wary. Although as far as Gibbs was concerned, she couldn't quite decide whether it was based in his superstition, or in the fact that her presence as the second woman aboard doubled their ill luck (although she would argue that she'd been here long before Anamaria, but that was splitting hairs). It could have been worse, though - wariness was not hostility. Still, she wasn't blind to how several heads turned her way in order to try to gauge her reaction to the island, perhaps hoping to glean some sort of hint as to what was to come. She kept her face blank.

They were much closer to the island than she was comfortable with when Jack addressed the crew.

"Let go the anchor," Jack ordered, receiving affirmative shouts from the crew before he turned to Gibbs "Young Mr Turner and I are to go ashore."

He paused for a moment and then glanced at her "Miss Byrne will be joining us."

"What?" She blanched.

"Captain," Gibbs interrupted "What if the worst should happen?"

"Keep to the code," Jack replied about as seriously as he ever got.

"Aye. The code," Gibbs nodded solemnly.

"Captain," Theo interrupted "I'm to come with you? In there?"

When Jack turned to her, she was caught off guard by just how intimidating his dark gaze could be when his jovial nature was dropped.

"Yes, as I ordered," he said simply.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

She said it reluctantly - and quietly, so she wouldn't be heard questioning the Captain by the rest of the crew.

"Tell me, Miss Byrne, of what use to me would you be all the way here? Am I to pause and send a note by messenger pigeon if your input is needed? Somehow, I think that might alert Barbossa to our presence," he spoke impatiently and intently "You are to come with us. That's an order."

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Theo's jaw clenched "Yes, Captain."

This was what she'd signed up for, wasn't it? Proving her worth didn't exactly include only following the orders that she wished to. For all of his quirks, she already knew that Jack could not abide such behaviour. Such disobedience. He couldn't hope to be any sort of pirate captain otherwise.

She could scarcely feel her legs as she climbed into the skiff after Jack and Will, practically looking through the blacksmith as he reached a hand out to help her in.

"No use sulking, love," Jack said in response to her sullen features.

Theo grimaced but said nothing. He had a point - she'd need to work on her poker face. Still, there was no way around what was to come. Nothing for her to do, at least if she wanted to continue proving her loyalty to Jack, that wouldn't end with her a prisoner of Barbossa's right alongside him before the day was through. If he didn't just kill her first.

"I'm not made for stealth," she said finally as he took up the oars while the crew lowered them down into the water.

"You stowed away with us, didn't you? Don't be so hard on yourself," he offered her a smug smirk.

Ah, yes, a motivational speech from Jack Sparrow. That was exactly what she needed.

By the time they rowed into the cave system of the isle, Theo had forced herself through a speed-run of all of the stages of grief in order to reach 'acceptance' as quickly and efficiently as possible. Jack and Will's bickering breezed past her during that process, as she was a bit too preoccupied to find the novelty of witnessing it in person this time. By the time they stepped out of the boat, she was mentally constructing some sort of plan. She'd yet to have one fail — and she hoped today wouldn't prove a milestone as far as that was concerned.

A/N: I did intend to have Barbossa in this chapter, I'm sorry! Things just didn't pan out that way and it works out much more neatly if I introduce him in the next one, and it stops this chapter being pushed back by a fair few days. What's even more mad is that we're not actually too crazily far away from having James and Theo be reunited, if you look at the structure of the first movie!