A/N: I'm sorry I've been pretty abysmal at replying to reviews this month - there's been a lot going on, which I explain at the end, but I'm going to do better from here! I read every single one and they always make me very happy, even if I don't manage to respond every now and then.

Out of all of the tasks Hattie had been given across her career, Theo suspected that being asked to prepare a care package for one of the world's most notorious pirates was probably the strangest.

"For Sparrow?" She stared at her, aghast.

"Yeah, I know it's short notice but it doesn't need to be anything fancy - bread, cheese, maybe some jam. Fruit - they probably won't be giving him fruit. Something to drink, too. Honestly, just raid the pantry and then we can restock after."

"I…I hardly know what he might enjoy," she said fretfully.

"I mean, unless you manage to wedge a prostitute into the basket he's not going to be very excited either way, so we need to just work with what we've got."

Hattie let out a burst of shocked laughter that sounded more like a sneeze than anything, shaking her head as she was caught between being scandalised and amused.

"Honestly, Mistress, you'll give me a heart attack one of these days," she murmured.

"Well, before that day comes, I need to ask another favour of you," Theo said.

Eyeing her reluctantly, Hattie picked at her apron while she awaited her next instruction. Theo hesitated - and that hesitation was not part of the lie she was about to put forward, but it served it all the same.

"It would be best if we didn't mention my visiting Sparrow to Admiral Norrington," she said finally.

Alarm flashed across the blonde's face before she quickly covered it, bowing her head and pressing her lips together as she visibly debated whether or not to argue.

"I wouldn't be doing it if Becke- Lord Beckett hadn't asked it of me. It's not like I have much choice in the matter, and by the time he gets back it'll all be done and dusted anyway. Telling him will only worry him, and for what? A bit of bread and cheese? He's got enough on his mind these days without me adding to it, what with the pirate threat and all."

"And if he asks me?"

"Hattie, if he gets home and asks you whether I brought a basket full of lunch to Jack Sparrow, then by all means feel free to tell him the truth. But he won't. And if, by some strange turn of events, he finds out and is upset at not being told, I'll take the fall and you can just pretend you didn't know that he didn't know."

"You'll take the fall?"

"The blame."

The urge to fidget uncomfortably was one she resisted - while it didn't really matter if Hattie thought her nervous, it did matter if she looked guilty as sin, and there was a fine line between those two emotions. And the guilt was real, too, just not for the reason Hattie would think. Once again she found herself stuck in a situation where she had to lie and play games of half-truths and deception with somebody she cared about. Oh, how she longed for a day where she didn't have several thousand stories to keep track of and maintain - half of which usually ran the risk of having her done for either witchcraft or piracy. Maybe one day Beckett would find a way of combining the two charges - wiracy, pitchcraft, something like that - and then she'd really be fucked.

Still, she'd agreed upon this course of action with James. If Hattie gave this information to Beckett, it gave him a little kernel of information that was ultimately useless, but he didn't know that. If this was a test to see how close they were, there were only two possible conclusions - the first being that they were happy to keep secrets from one another, and could be blackmailed with said secrets at a later date, and the second being that they were a united front, and could therefore be used against each other thanks to how they loved one another. The prospect of him taking the former approach scared her infinitely less than the latter. Hattie would believe it too, because it wasn't like there wasn't a bit of a precedent of Theo doing stupid shit behind James' back.

However sound their reasoning and their motives both were, though, it still felt shitty. They'd sold this position to Hattie as being a united front - them against a common enemy - and instead they were using her as a chess piece just as he was. The caveat, she supposed, was that they actually cared about her. If she was under their roof, they could keep her safe. Beckett, being the little psychopath that he was, wouldn't care a whit for her wellbeing. This was the song they needed her to sing to Beckett, but telling her so - telling her that it was all a ruse and that she'd be lying to Beckett would only add yet more stress to her shoulders. Sometimes the best way forward was the shitty way. Theo felt nervous enough lying to him herself, and she'd already lied to just about everybody she'd met here.

"Are you okay with it? All of it?" she pressed slowly.

Despite it all - and despite James' insistence that she had to remember that Hattie was their employee and not their friend - she wouldn't have the girl take it as an order. She wouldn't be like Beckett, telling her what she would do and offering no room for input or disagreement. She was her boss, she wasn't her owner.

"Very well, Mistress," she bowed her head "...I've known women to keep worse secrets from their husbands, I suppose. I'll go and see to that basket."

Theo smiled and nodded her thanks, turning her attention to her reflection as Hattie left the room. Jack would have a field day when he saw her - the picture of demure innocence, her long hair done up in an elaborate updo while she donned a powder blue dress with subtle white floral designs all over it. What she'd been through still showed here and there. When the sunlight hit her face just so, it illuminated a barest hints of a scar across the left side of her brow, so thin and white and faint that it might as well have been a cat scratch. The one at her lip was fainter still, so difficult to spot that half the time she wondered if she wasn't imagining it altogether.

They didn't bother her - even if she still found herself avoiding looking at the room where she'd acquired them whenever she walked past it in the hallway. The good folk gathered here couldn't even judge her for them (much to their disappointment, probably), considering very few of them could boast of complexions completely unmarred by injury or sickness. No, her reflection didn't cause her any worry. Her hair had grown stupidly long - down to her lower back, and if she'd been back home she'd taken a pair of kitchen scissors to it long before now. Around here, though, that would've been about as outlandish as joining Jack was. Since arriving here she'd thinned a bit, which might've worried her considering she hadn't had a whole lot of fat to lose in the first place, but she'd also put on a bit of muscle, so at least the stress and strain she faced here hadn't left her gaunt and weak. Sometimes she thought she looked older now, too - less wide-eyed and baffled than she'd been when she first arrived. But, well, she'd seen some shit, hadn't she?

No doubt she'd see more of it before all was said and done. With any luck, she'd avoid going grey by the end of it.

Walking through Port Royal's hospital set her nerves on edge almost as much as climbing around the Dutchman had. On the Dutchman, at least, she'd been able to see the monsters. Here? Here she was certain that every wall she brushed against, every person who passed by her just slightly too close, every inhale, was giving her some sort of strange and incurable disease. Far from the somewhat unsettling overly sterile smell of hospitals that she was used to, this one threatened to give her a headache - the whole place reeked of poultices and herbs and incense, all fighting and failing to cover up the reek of unwashed bodies and sickness. The whole place was dim and dark, too, the windows shuttered and the medics being given only just enough light to work in. It was like a sodding opium den. Then again, given when medicine was like in this time, maybe that was more or less what it was.

The basket, having been inspected thoroughly by one of Beckett's men, lay in the crook of her right arm while the hand of her left came up to hold a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. She had no idea if it would stop her from catching anything, but at least it could mask the smell. The soldier who led her through the hospital did so at a brisk pace, glancing behind him every now and then to check she was still there - but Theo suspected this was more to do with making sure she wasn't up to anything rather than out of a care for her potentially getting lost.

"You may give Sparrow the contents of the basket, but nothing else. Whatever you have brought him must be consumed or otherwise enjoyed only for the duration of the visit, and anything that is left over must leave with you upon your departure. You are not to disturb his shackles. If he attempts anything, you must notify the guard immediately."

At this, she held back any joke she might've been tempted to make. Now wasn't the place, nor the time. But did they really think he'd manage to escape using only an empty wine bottle, an apple core and a scrap of bread?...Okay, knowing Jack that concept wasn't too outlandish. Maybe it was smart of Beckett to not take any chances - and she was certain that it wasn't solely secrecy that he had in mind when he kept Jack so separate from the rest of the infirmed. If he was lumped in with everybody else, no doubt he'd finagle something from somebody - a hairpin, a match, whatever. It didn't matter, he'd make it work.

The soldier led her swiftly through endless corridors and stairwells - too many, it seemed, for the size of the hospital. Was he leading her in strange loops so if she tried to make a break for it with Jack, she wouldn't know the way out? Pointless of him, really, because if they were going to do something that stupid they'd go for the window. Obviously. Finally, though, they reached a doorway that was guarded by another, much younger soldier. He nodded in greeting to his superior, and then unlocked the door and stepped aside so that they might enter. Theo did so first, and then blinked in surprise when the one who had led her here didn't follow, instead stepping back and closing the door in her wake.

The lock groaned and then clicked as it was locked behind her, and the shadows of the soldiers disappeared from under the door. She did not, however, hear footsteps retreating down the hallway. They were still there - offering the illusion of privacy to see what she might say.

"Well, well. Mrs Admiral Norrington. Aren't you a sight for sore eyes, love?"

Turning away from the door, she turned her attention to Jack. The question didn't have much bite to it, but she didn't really dare hope it was because he wasn't holding grudges. Maybe he was just glad to have somebody not in uniform to speak to.

"I thought I'd have to resort to old habits if I wanted to pay you a visit," she admitted "But then Lord Beckett asked me to call on you."

He wasn't quite as bad as she'd feared - nor even as bad as he'd been when she'd last seen him. Far from his usual healthy bronze, his skin was a few shades paler and the kohl was long gone from around his eyes, adding to the tiredness on his face.

"Seems the sort of thing that only works the once, anyway," he muttered.

Hopefully he was wrong on that score. There was every chance that she'd need her old bible trick again at some point. Although last time she'd been able to rely largely on James' goodwill if she was caught, she knew that banking on such a thing this time around would get her a one way ticket to the gallows. She'd need to ask around, find out who exactly knew the trick (and that it was a trick) from last time, and maybe double down on the act in the run-up. Make sure she'd be seen in church a bit more than necessary, that sort of thing. The upside being it was one of the few places where she wouldn't be expected to make small-talk with people who hated her, especially if she pretended she was there to furiously pray for James' safety and wellbeing. Shit, maybe she would - but to Queen Achtland. Maybe Calypso, to be safe.

A wooden chair with one leg significantly shorter than the others was left beside the bed, and she rounded the bed to approach it - stopping to place the basket on the bed without much ceremony. Jack began to dig through it with just as little fanfare. Her eyes drifted to his injured hand as he did so - it was bound in a surprisingly clean bandage, a testament to his being worth more alive for the time being - and while he moved it a little stiffly, it didn't seem to be causing him much agony.

In fact, the more she looked at him, the more she got the sense that the discomfort on his face was more mental than physical. Jack Sparrow was the last man in this world - or in her own, and however many iterations existed overall - who was meant to be cooped up in one room for any period of time. While he didn't pause in his rummaging, he did regard her only after uncorking the wine bottle with her teeth and taking a gulp.

"How's married life treating you, then? Everything you dreamed it would be? Or he would be, I suppose?"

The bread was next, a great hunk of it wedged into the jam like it was a dip. The question was meant to be barbed - and it would've been, if not for the barest hint of curiosity on his face as he looked at her while he chewed. And she didn't mean to react - really, she didn't. In fact, she opened her mouth to make a very dry and clever comment, but none came, and then (damn it) she blushed. Jack grinned and she gave her best show of exasperation, shaking her head and pursing her lips just so that she wouldn't smile like an absolute idiot.

"My, my. I owe the good Admiral an apology for underestimating him so sorely," he mused "Won't lie, love, I took him for a two pump chump - but judging by your face and general…relaxed demeanour, I was very wrong indeed."

Theo rolled her eyes, folding her hands in her lap.

"Unless, of course, you're just exceptionally easily pleased," he added, all out dipping his hunk of bread into the jar of jam.

"Not at all. And you were very wrong," she said simply "That's all I'll say on the matter."

Jack chuckled through his mouthful of bread, barely waiting to swallow it down before he replied "I'll let me imagination do the rest, eh?"

"Spend a lot of time imagining us, do you? Careful or I'll start to worry that I have competition."

She could just hear Beckett's men reporting back to him now - informing him awkwardly that they spend the visit discussing James Norrington's prowess in the bedroom and little else. Oh, to be a fly on that wall.

"There's precious little else to contemplate in here," he replied sourly.

"What about Lord Beckett's deal?" She hedged.

He gave her a deadpan look, and she shot a pointed glance in the direction of the door.

"You know of that, then?"

"I'm guessing at it," she admitted, forcing a sheepish laugh "Why would he discuss his plans with a woman? But were he not amenable to some sort of agreement, you'd have been hanged by now - or so my husband tells me."

Maybe she was laying it on a bit thick, and she bloody well hated every simpering word, but it drew an amused smile from Jack all the same.

"Did you know he was going to turn me over?"

"No," she admitted "But I can't really blame him for it, either."

"I seem to remember our score being very firmly settled, love," he gestured to the faded bruises along his cheekbone from their reunion on Jones' island.

"He had his own score to settle with you."

"Ah, but now it's settled and we're friends again, eh?"

"The day that you and James Norrington are friends will be a strange one indeed. Pigs will fly overhead, Jones might crack a smile."

"And ol' Cutler would let me walk free?"

"Now that is a day that'll never come," she said, and then added "You're a pirate, Jack, you made your bed. You're lucky Lord Beckett is the merciful type."

In the same way that the Chernobyl disaster was environmentally friendly.

"You n' your old husband were pirates too, for a time."

"James had a noble goal, and I…I was hysterical. I wasn't in my right mind. We made our amends and we're better off for it."

Jack, damn him, knew she hated every word coming out of her mouth, grinning as she spouted the bullshit everybody around here would. Maybe this visit would lift his spirits after all - if only thanks to the sheer amusement it was filling him with.

"Could it really be so bad, Jack? To simply give him what he wants, to live as a free man on the right side of the law?"

As she spoke she leaned forward and took his hand, squeezing hard and staring at him while shaking her head as if to say 'don't you bloody dare believe me'. He watched her carefully, and then squeezed back.

"Easy for you to say, love, you didn't have much choice," even as he disagreed, he worked some very believable doubt into his voice "It's not like you could go back to Tortuga. I can."

Theo blinked, finally dropping the act without even meaning to.

"What do you mean?"

"Renounce them as you like, but they're loyal to their own lot. They won't take kindle to the Jones debacle, and they won't trust you again."

"It's not like he accepted them for his crew, though, so it's fine. Surely they'll get over it? They betray each other much worse than that all the time?"

Jack stared at her then, and stared hard. Then realisation dawned on him and discomfort flitted across his features as he squeezed her hand for a final time and then let go.

"He's not told you," he said.

"What?" She blinked, and then panic began to rise in her chest at the genuine hesitance in his frown "Jack, told me what?"

"Dora…darlin'…After Jones took you, he had his men slaughter all of the souls we'd offered to him. Every last one."

Her mind fell utterly blank.

"What are you…? No. No, he didn't. He can't have."

"Ask Norrington yourself."

"I can't, he's not- he's away. Off with Beckett to make contact with Jones. Jack, are you…are you sure?"

The reek of the hospital suddenly seemed ten times more unbearable, assaulting her sense as her breathing quickened and the eggs she'd eaten for breakfast threatened to make a triumphant return. As she tried to steady herself, the chair lurched beneath her thanks to the uneven legs and her breath caught in her throat as she was certain she was about to crash to the ground. She didn't, not in the end, but it might've been easier if she had. The ground probably felt a great deal more solid than anything immediately by her that she might grab onto for purchase.

"Why would I lie about it?" he replied "Tortuga wouldn't be a safe place for you now. Way they see it, you rounded up a hundred healthy men to go to and get butchered like livestock."

Oh god. Oh fuck. All of those men. Every single one of them. She closed her eyes as if it might help, but the second she did so all she saw was them rounded up on the main deck while she watched. Wilding? Wilding she wouldn't mourn. Judging by his attitude as well as his hatred for her, there was every chance she'd've had to kill him herself through self-defence at some point or another. There were even a fair number among them who were just as bad as him…but few, if any, had really done anything against her. More still had done absolutely nothing other than believe her. Sure, she made sure their numbers were made up of people who were either arseholes or just dumb as rocks, but that wasn't a crime. It wasn't like the other times when her options were to kill or be killed.

All of those men…

"How will they know?" she tried and failed to keep her tone devoid of any of the emotions whirling around within her "The only people that do know are me, you, James, Will, Elizabeth, and your crew."

"Me crew's the problem there. Many of them don't see it so entirely differently from how Tortuga will. 'Specially not if they do deem their dear ol' Captain Jack dead now…which, I might add, I hope they do or I'll never see me bloody ship again."

"But if I didn't do it, they would have," she pointed out desperately, ignoring his gripes about the Pearl "Gibbs himself would've rounded up whoever he could on your behalf."

"They don't know that. Not for definite. And they also don't know that you didn't know what would happen. All they know is you, knowingly or unknowingly, went and got a hundred healthy pirates killed, maybe even me killed depending on what it is they know out there, and then fled with Norrington and got yourselves a cosy little life here under Beckett. Which, by their reckoning, is a bit too coincidental for it to have been unknowing. As much as I hate to say it - and I do very much hate to say it - this is the best place for you now."

She remembered her little act a beat later.

"Of course it is. It's civilised. I just…" collecting herself was difficult, but she managed it "I just pray I haven't made myself a target to the brigands in their number."

Jack offered a wry smile "So long as you remain as civilised as this place, love, you always will be."

After he'd spoken, he turned his head and the light glinted off the coin tied into the braid at the front of his headband. The animal shinbone was gone, cut out of his hair, but everything else had been left. Apparently beads and coins weren't seen as much of a security issue in the same way that apple cores and bread crusts were. Still, she wasn't sure how much she liked the idea of Beckett having one of the Nine Pieces of Eight if he ever twigged on to what exactly it was that Jack wore hidden in plain sight day in and day out. The last thing they needed was to find themselves incapable of carrying out the ritual because Beckett held one of the Pieces hostage.

Of course, bringing anything vaguely sharp or pointy had been entirely vetoed, so she had to work with what she had. Taking up one of the tapers from the candelabra on the bedside table, she leaned forward before he could react and leaned towards him.

"If this is your attempt to create a bit of mood lighting, love, you've no subtlety at all- oi!"

"Shush, or they'll come in," she admonished, voice quieter even than a whisper as she lifted the braid and held the flame just beneath it until the hair began to burn away "The last thing we need is Beckett holding this over our heads once the song is sung."

The hair singed and burned away easily and she batted out any bits that threatened to properly catch, hardly feeling the burn beyond her numbness. No, what bothered her far more were her attempts to get Jones' voice out of her head, saying words she'd never actually heard in person - 'one hundred souls, three days'. One hundred souls. All gone because of her. Because of her meddling.

"Just for now," she murmured, hoping the meaning of her words was clear.

He'd get it back once she got him out. Evidently, though, the men stationed outside were unsettled by the murmuring that had taken over, and she'd only just managed to furiously wedge the braid down her cleavage (thanking the hot climate here for helping along the journey a bit) when the door swung open. Knowing just how guilty her proximity to Jack could look, she seized his hand and pretended she was in the midst of one final emotional plea as the men began to gather up whatever hadn't been consumed, tossing it back into the basket and searching the bedding for more.

"Jack, take the deal. Whatever it is, whatever he's good enough to offer you, take it. You won't regret it."

Jack scoffed, tearing his hand from her grasp with such ferocity that it actually took her aback.

"We're not all traitors, Dora."

She scoffed, rising to her feet and not having to feign her unsteadiness as her mind continued its chanting of 'one hundred souls' over and over.

"Honour amongst thieves then, is it? See how far that gets you."

If she could've afforded it, she'd have shot him a wink at the end. As it was, she was too busy trying to feel her legs beneath her as she staggered away from the bed.

"Mrs Norrington," the junior of the two men offered the basket to her.

"Keep it," she shook her head "Or give it to the people here who need food."

She didn't trust herself to carry it home without spilling half of the shit all over the street. Even as she stepped out into the hallway, she found herself reaching for the wall to steady herself, pausing halfway down the corridor when she realised she needed the soldier to lead the way out of the hospital.

Jack's little bit of news had hit her hard, and the impact only seemed to double and then triple the more her mind had a chance to run with it. If Hattie was proof of the lives she could save, what was this? It certainly wasn't merely nature's way of balancing it out. No, that was already accounted for in the form of the handful of men she'd killed directly through self defence since arriving here. Was it a statement? That for every person she saved, hundreds would then have to die? Even if that panic-stricken thought was true, it changed nothing. She'd save James if it meant a million would die in his place. There was no consideration necessary there.

No, it seemed more a matter of cause and effect. She'd rounded up the men, she'd pissed off Jones by doing so, and she'd gotten them killed. What was he going to do? Call it an honest mistake and let them all walk free? Of course he'd killed them. Of course he had. She didn't even know whether James hadn't mentioned it purposely, or because he simply thought it painfully obvious.

All of those fucking men, though. All one hundred of them.

"Mrs Norrington, are you quite well?"

The image of them all rounded up on deck continued to come back to her, renewed every time she blinked. She'd seen enough carnage here to be able to conjure up likely very accurate pictures of how the slaughter would've gone. The screaming and the blood and guts and bone, all while she was out cold in the brig of the Dutchman. Fuck - their bodies had probably barely gone cold by the time she was up and talking to Bootstrap.

She hadn't even realised the soldier who'd led her in was at her side until he was speaking, frowning at her worriedly.

"I…" she paused and then inhaled, stomach turning all the more "I'm going to be sick."

The man had little time to do anything other than take a panicked step back before she doubled over and was reunited with her breakfast.

A/N: For those who have been following my homelessness saga over the last ~7 months, I have a final update! It's not the final update I'd hoped for, but after a lot of thinking on it I think it'll be for the best in the long run. The friend I'm staying with is losing her place and will be downsizing when she moves (but even if she wasn't, I've been resting on her goodwill for far too long anyway) so I'm going to have to move cities (and countries, even if it's another one within the UK) to go and live with family because finding a place of my own here just isn't working out. It's not what I wanted initially, but I do think a brand new start in a brand new city might be in order, and if I make the most of this I think I can turn it into something very good. I'm trying to have some of Theodora's resilience here B)

Sooo…a new beginning and a new adventure, I guess! I'm going to be moving there within the next month, and I'm going to do my best to minimise the impact it'll have across my stories. Again, though, thank you guys so much for how amazing you were throughout this whole ridiculous situation, I genuinely credit my ability to get through this largely to working on these stories as a distraction, and how amazingly lovely you guys have been in response, not to mention those who have donated on Ko-fi (which will never not blow my mind and make me tear up), and I'll always be massively grateful for that. You've done wonders for my self-belief and my hopes for getting an actual novel published within the next few years!