A/N: An Irishwoman, a pirate, and a soldier drift on a dinghy…

"So go on home, British soldiers, go on home," Jack was singing in the opposite end of the dinghy, which suddenly felt nowhere near big enough for all three of them "Have you got no bloody homes of your own?"

"I'm going to kill him, Theodora," James said flatly.

"Oh, don't be so dour, mate, it was Dora who taught me this song," Jack grinned before he continued "For eight-hundred years, we've fought you without fear, and we will fight ye for eight hundred more."

Theo pinched the bridge of her nose, wondering if she'd even stop James from throwing him overboard if he saw fit to do so.

"It was when we were marooned. I was very drunk," she murmured.

"Hush, we're getting to the best bit," Jack interjected "Oh, we're not British, we're not Saxon, we're not English - we're pirates, and proud we are to be!"

Biting down on the inside of her cheek, she was idly impressed with his substitution of "pirates" where he should have said "Irish".

"How does the rest of it go again, Dora?"

Theo glared at him before sighing and grinding out, just to save ten minutes of needling "So fuck your Union Jack-"

"-We want our country back!" Jack finished a grin, having very much obviously not forgotten the words - he just wanted her to say them, and to say them in front of James "We want to see ol' Ireland free once more."

Jack slipped into the chorus once again, she turned to James and asked softly.

"So, how much do you hate me right now?"

"Of course I don't hate you, Theodora," he admonished.

"I didn't mean - not literally. But how angry are you with me?" She clarified.

That one he did not answer, his lips pursed.

"This is what you discussed, then? The morning before we met with Jones?"

"Yes. He wasn't exactly pleased that I'd taken so long to tell him. Probably part of why he handed me over to Jones in the first place - a bit of revenge."

"He would have done that had you been the most loyal of servants in all of piratedom."

"Probably," she admitted.

There was silence then, and she thought he didn't mean to speak at all. But she wasn't blind to the fact that if he clenched his jaw anymore tightly, he'd probably start cracking his teeth.

"Why did you not tell me?" He asked finally.

"Because I knew that if I did, you'd try to stop me, and I knew that if you tried to stop me, I'd end up listening."

"He should be dead now then, yes?"

"Should is a relative wo-" she stopped short at his unimpressed look and sighed "Yeah. The others will be rowing to Tia Dalma as we speak to devise a plan to bring him back."

Although word would no doubt reach them sometime between here and Singapore that he was very much not dead. Beckett wouldn't keep it quiet when he managed to cut a deal with the infamous Jack Sparrow. It would be a significant blow against the pirates. One they'd need to come back from quickly. But she was sure they'd manage it. Jack was never known to stick to his deals, anyway, and once the kraken was dead he wouldn't have much motivation to do so. Jones was a threat, sure, but not as much as his pet was. Beckett himself recognised that fairly quickly.

"And how are we to know that we won't have the kraken or Jones on our tail now because you saw fit to save him?"

They didn't. Not for sure. But they'd been drifting for at least a couple of hours, based on the position of the sun in the sky. If they were going to find them, they would've done so by now.

"They can be tricked. Both of them. We've seen it enough over the last couple of days. Jones didn't know about my…bending the rules of their deal until Wilding told him. They didn't know how I escaped from the brig, or that I was still hiding on the ship after, or that Will survived the kraken the first time round. They didn't know the heart wasn't in the chest until they actually checked and looked inside. In the last few weeks, the kraken attacked a ship that Jack's hat was on because it thought that meant Jack was aboard the ship. If the black spot had regrown on his hand, I'd be worried, but it hasn't so I'm…well, I'm still worried, but not as much as I would be. They're powerful, they're not infallible. Once Beckett has the heart, he'll order Jones to kill the kraken because he knows he's too powerful with it. We just need to keep Jack alive until that point."

Jones also didn't know that Jack had escaped the locker until Will informed him, in the other version of events.

"An effort that will fail if he doesn't get that hand seen to fairly swiftly," James said.

He seemed far more cheered by that particular prospect than Theo was. She saw his point, though. Jack's usual bronzed complexion was just a shade paler - hand wounds were known for their heavy bleeding. It seemed to have stopped though, despite how it had saturated the rag wrapped around his hand before it finally ceased. Infection, though, was a hefty concern. She added hand sanitiser and disinfectant to the list of things she missed from back home.

"I had to act according to my conscience - and my gut," she said "But I'm sorry. I am, James."

"I understand that. I only hope that you'll endeavour to be so understanding when I am called upon to do the same."

The man was a master at keeping his face unreasonable when he saw fit, and the fact that he had chosen to do so now, to her, did sting. But it was deserved, and it was no more than she'd done to him in the last couple of days…and what he was asking for was hardly unreasonable. More a lack of hypocrisy on her part than anything else.

"I will be," she said "It's all I can ask of you, really."

"And I also hope that a day may come where we work together to achieve a goal, rather than parallel to one another," he admitted at a grumble.

"I hope so too."

He nodded, and then he did fall silent, his eyes closing against the heat of the afternoon sun.

Despite it all, though - despite Jack's dedicated wind-up merchant antics, despite James' ire, despite Beckett's impending introduction, despite her worries over what she'd done by saving Jack, and even despite the fact that she was painfully aware of the full-circle moment she'd found herself in, once again adrift at sea well over a year after she'd first found herself so, Theo felt light. Lighter than she had in a long time. For she had saved Jack. He was supposed to be dead right now, and instead he was lounging at the other end of the dinghy, making every effort to thoroughly piss them off.

Her saving Hattie had been easy for her to write off in her own mind. Hattie hadn't been part of the story, and if Theo had never come here she'd have never known she existed. There was every possibility, or so her fear told her, that her ability to save her lay within that fact - that it wouldn't alter anything within the grand scheme of the story, not unless Hattie had taken up a sword and set about becoming a shieldmaiden for the side of Lord Beckett since they'd last seen each other. Theo doubted it - not that she wouldn't have liked to see it.

But Jack living? He was the lead of this story. If she could change his fate, she could change anybody's. It would've been enough to send anybody on some mad power trip, but all Theo cared about was how it translated to James' life. She could save him. She could. And if she could - if it was even vaguely, faintly possible - she damn well would. They sat at opposite ends of the dinghy with her legs stretched between Jack's and James, and every time Jack fidgeted or jostled her legs it didn't even bother her, for it acted as yet more reassurance. Plus, she knew if she didn't act as a barrier, James would've probably snapped and kicked him black and blue by now.

Jack's singing petered off into his old reliable - A Pirate's Life For Me - but Theo tuned it out, turning to James who lay reclined by her side, his eyes closed and his head tilted back to the sun.

"What happens when we get back to Port Royal?" she asked quietly.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"I didn't mean in the grand scheme," she'd altered that too much now anyway.

There was no telling what would happen when they were found toting Jack…but she would argue that the same would have already been said now that James was dragging along Tortuga's infamous witch behind him anyway.

"I meant with…with us," she said.

"I…" he frowned and then trailed off, evidently having the same thoughts she'd just been swamped in.

It was all well and good saying that they'd get out of this, get themselves to safety and then work together to deal with what came next, but there was no guarantee that they would be able to stick together. Beckett would hardly put much stock in their courtship, nor even their betrothal, and he'd made it clear already that he had at least some level of interest in her. A man like that could find all manner of ways to split them up if it came down to it. Unless…

"We'll find our way," he said finally - quietly.

Theo opened her mouth to say what was on her mind, and then she faltered, nerves gnawing away at her insides. But they were running out of time, and when she next opened her mouth she shoved the words out, although she couldn't quite keep her tone as light and breezy as she tried.

"I don't s'pose you'd marry me?"

He snorted. Theo didn't laugh, instead watching him quietly. She very much hoped he'd realise she wasn't joking because she wasn't sure she'd have the nerve to ask again.

"Is that a no, then?"

"That's a…" he opened his eyes as he began a very dry retort, only to trail off when he looked at her face and found no hint of a joke "Theodora, are you…are you serious?"

"Beckett can't split us up so easily if we're married as he can if we're courting or betrothed," she pointed out "Especially not in Port Royal. He might still try, but it wouldn't be so simple, and he can hardly ask a husband to live in a separate house from his wife without abandoning any subtlety. If you play the role of loyal soldier well enough, he might even trust you to keep me in line for him."

James scoffed, apparently finding such a prospect just as outlandish as she did. But his eyes remained firmly on her face.

"I know the setting isn't ideal, and I know the timing isn't either. I know you're annoyed at me, and I know I'd be annoyed at you, too, if I were in your shoes…but, well…it's the hand we've been dealt, and it'd save us a lot of bother."

"And is that…" he coughed and began anew, his voice less soft when he did "Is that your only reason?"

The question had her own face softening. It was one she understood, too. He'd been through one betrothal of convenience before, she could hardly blame him for wondering if this was more of the same now.

"No," she said, suddenly feeling oddly shy "That's not the only reason I'm saying it. I'm saying it because…because…"

She took a moment, trying to find the words as he watched her intently, appearing almost worried. But when she found the words, she knew they were the right ones.

"Because you knew I'd need to eat - you knew I'd need water, and amidst everything you made sure I got them. Because it even occurred to you to do so. Because we were separated for all of a day when I was aboard the Dutchman, and I missed you terribly for all of it. Because I'd rather spend an hour locked in a room with Jones and Barbossa both than meet Beckett in the next twenty-four hours, but I'm still dreading that less than the prospect of us being separated again. Because the idea of marriage terrifies me, but the idea of marriage to you doesn't, and I thought that would scare me in itself but that doesn't, either, and-"

She was cut off when his lips met hers - at an angle that was awkward thanks to where they sat, but it was brief, and it was chaste, and when he pulled back she breathed a laugh and added.

"And because if any other man kissed me to shut me up, he wouldn't have teeth for long afterwards, but it's somehow charming when you do it."

"You do realise that this is the first and last time you'll be able to use this tactic to stop my being annoyed with you?"

He was trying to sound gruff and unamused, but the smile was creeping into his voice even if not his face.

"Just wait 'til I tell you about vow renewals," she teased, unsure whether the fidgeting that was slowly taking over her limbs was down to excitement or nerves "But if you don't want to…"

"I would have married you in Tortuga," he said, and then added "Were it not, well, Tortuga."

"I know you said so back in Tortuga, but the reality of it - the knowledge and, and the time…living with the reality of it is pretty different from the theory."

"Yes, because up until I expressed my feelings our time together had been quiet and uneventful."

"There's a difference between your charge getting up to nonsense and your…your wife doing so," the word felt strange - and it had him smiling.

"Theodora, I'm convinced you're the only woman living who would ask a man to marry her and then attempt to talk him out of it in the same breath."

"See? Are you sure you'd want to tie yourself to such a woman-"

Another interruption in the form of a kiss, just a peck, and when he pulled back mirth sparkled in his eyes.

"Still charming?"

"For now, but I wouldn't push your luck with it."

"Are you sure?" He pressed "Truly?"

"I'm in - I'm all in. I'm done pretending otherwise."

It even felt foolish to her now that the possibility of her goal being doomed stood as an obstacle, because it wasn't like it would make moving on afterwards any easier. She could comprehend what might come after no more now than she ever would be able to. It wasn't like the title of widow would be the only thing stopping her from throwing her hands up, declaring "ah well, shit happens" and setting about finding a way to get home. But it didn't matter, because that wouldn't happen. It would not. She would never find herself in a position to mourn him.

Mourning home? That was an issue. A big, glaring issue. But again, if she would accept no outcome that saw James dead, that meant in itself that she would see no outcome where she returned home, because going home would mean leaving him. It was that thought that had her chest tightening, but it was something she'd already begun to accept in dribs and drabs. When she found herself with the time and the space, she'd have to face it properly. And it would hurt. But that was a matter for later. Living in denial of it would change nothing now.

"Here?" James challenged "Now? Like this?"

"Where else?" She gave a laugh "The only thing I'd change if I could was I'd have me dad here."

She'd always thought back home that she'd never fork out thousands for the sake of a wedding if the day ever came. Christ, she'd happily trot along down to the registry office in her bloody pyjamas a la Kurt Cobain and save the money for a holiday afterwards anyway. His brow furrowed in sympathy, and she understood why. James was a doer - a fixer. This was one thing he could neither change nor fix.

"…Whether it happens here, the chapel in Port Royal, or a cathedral in London, that can't be changed."

Nodding slowly, his fingers ghosted over her wrist until they travelled up her palm and finally entwined with her own. Then, slowly, he turned to Jack with all of the enthusiasm of a man about to undergo having his teeth drilled.

"Sparrow," he said.

Jack had long since stopped singing, and was instead dozing in the other end of the dinghy. Or so it appeared - Theo couldn't help but wonder if his facade of sleep was more to do with a desire to eavesdrop.

"Jack," she nudged his leg with the toe of one of her heavy boots when he didn't respond.

"Eh?" He grunted.

"We name you Captain of this vessel," she said.

"Oh? Very nice of you," he mumbled.

"You're welcome. Now marry us."

"You, maybe. With a serious attitude adjustment, I s'pose. Him? Not likely, love."

"Oh for the love of…" James was grumbling.

"Jack," Theo interjected "Please."

Heaving a great sigh, Jack sat up on the elbow of his good arm, the wounded hand of the other still held to his chest.

"Him? Really, Dora?"

"I do believe you were once rooting for me," James ground out.

Theo simply kept an entreating gaze fixed on the pirate. Finally, something gave way in his eyes and he sat up properly with a grumble. They both followed suit, James straightening his coat and Theo running a hand over her hair. There was no room for them to face one another in the boat, so they simply had to instead sit side-by-side, hands still clasped together.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, in this fine dinghy, to witness the union of this woman and this former-slash-future commodore."

"Jack."

"This woman and this man…"

As Jack muddled his way through the words (albeit admittedly in the most un-muddled sort of nature one could ever really hope for from him), and she sat squeezing James' hand in hers, Theo could've sworn for just a fraction of a section, she heard the low, delighted laugh of Queen Achtland.