A word about Will's plan to protect the Pearl by making it Norrington's only escape route: I know nothing about strategy for naval battles, I can't even fire a cannon, and my entire knowledge of a ship's anatomy comes from the appendix of a kids' book called The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. (I ripped out the appendix from my school library's copy in sixth grade. I can't remember now what I wanted it for. It was a good book and I named the OC in this chapter after its heroine.) Therefore, when it comes to anything involving how ships are sailed or fought, I know NOTHING. However, as a blacksmith, neither does Will. So if any of Will's ideas don't make any sense, that's fine, because he probably doesn't know any better either.

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"Help! Help me," Charlotte shouted, treading water in her underclothes. This was without doubt the strangest day of her life. First, her family had been woken up in the middle of the night by pirates breaking into her house. They had been kidnapped, because her son hadn't been able to resist sneaking down to get a better look at them. If her husband had been home he would have kept the boy upstairs, she knew. But he was away, and Charlotte by herself hadn't been able to stop the child before the pirates spotted them.

So they had been taken as captives. And then the most beautiful pirate God ever created had picked up her son and given him a hug. This pirate had then ever so politely convinced her to jump overboard in order to help him take over somebody else's ship. She knew he could have just thrown her over the side, or forced her over with threats, but he had been a gentleman about it to every last detail. "There's something you need to understand, please," he'd told her earnestly. "I am not threatening you. I just want you to remember this: your son is still on my ship. The worse it goes for us, the bigger the risk to his life. If you share our plan with Norrington and he sinks us..."

She shook her head. "I've said I'll help you. Keep my son safe."

The pirate nodded, then blushed very adorably. "I hate to do this to you, but you're going to have to take your dress off."

"What!"

"My fiancée's been dropped into the ocean more than once, and she told me the dress makes the difference between floating and drowning."

Charlotte nodded, acutely disappointed to hear that he was betrothed. She stripped down to her underclothes - once her son was removed from the premises, of course - and stepped out on the plank. Just before she jumped, she thought to ask, "My name's Charlotte. What's yours?"

"Will. Good luck."

"Same to you, Will."

Charlotte was hauled shivering into a longboat. She was the first prisoner pulled out of the water, but would by no means be the last - there were already three others floundering and calling for help. And that dashing scoundrel Will probably wasn't finished dumping - he'd told her his idea was to scatter the drowners so that Norrington would have to send out more than one boat, wasting as many of his men as possible.

Someone draped a coat over her shoulders. "What happened?"

"P-P-Pirates," she explained. The tears were manufactured, but the shivering was not. "They robbed my house, took my son, and they tried to t-t-take advantage of me. That's why I jumped."

"Oh, God."

She threw herself, sobbing, into their arms. The longer they took to comfort her, the longer it would take them to round up the others and the longer it would be before they got back to the ship. "I didn't want to leave my son with them," she wailed. "But I c-couldn't let him see his mother..."

"No, of course not, you did the right thing," one of the men soothed. "We'll get him back for you."

They were so kind that Charlotte almost felt bad she was helping betray them.

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"Mama!" As the boats unloaded their refugees onto Norrington's ship, a little boy weaseled his way through the crowd and threw his arms around Charlotte. She gasped.

"Albert! What are you doing here?"

"The same thing as you, probably," one of the soldiers said. She was entitled to be a little confused, wasn't she, after what she had gone through. "The pirates must have thrown him overboard."

"But Will said he wouldn't-" Charlotte bit her tongue.

Their leader, a man called James Norrington about whom Charlotte had heard many strange stories, whipped around to face her. "What was that?"

"I..." She tried hard not to look guilty.

"Will, was it? You did just say Will said, did you not?" She remained silent and he stepped up very close to her. "If I get the impression that you or your son are in league with these pirates, I will hang you both. Right here, right now." She gasped and he held her still with just the intensity of his stare. "Now, answer me: one of the pirates, his name is Will?" When she still wouldn't speak, he called to his men without taking his eyes away: "Tie a noose; the boy goes first."

She could hardly breathe. "Yes, their leader," she babbled, "His name is Will. He's a young man, terribly handsome but scarred everywhere."

Norrington frowned. "Scarred?" Charlotte could see that something clearly didn't add up.

"Yes, all across his back and down his arm," she clarified, having done enough guilty staring to have memorized all of them. She put a hand to her neck. "Also one right here, as though somebody tried to cut his throat. Plus the scar of a bullet, in the chest."

Not possible, Norrington thought. The last time he had seen Will Turner he had had none of these injuries. There simply hadn't been time between then and now for the man to take a shooting and a stabbing and have recovered from both.

"Tell me something else about this pirate," Norrington grated. He raised his voice. "Do it or the boy swings!"

"I- I don't know... He's betrothed!" she burst out. "And his fiancée's been thrown in the ocean and nearly drowned - more than once!"

"Does he have a scar on his palm - here?"

Little Albert spoke up from down below them. "Yes," he chirped. "I felt it when he held my hand. And I asked and he told me it was because he was fighting against a magic spell! I love him!" He looked worried all of a sudden. "Mama, please don't be mad that he let me walk the plank, he said I have two very important jobs to do. One is take care of you." He looked up at Norrington. "Are you the scary man in a wig? Do you have a very nice sword?"

Norrington grit his teeth. "Yes, that would be me."

"Then I have a secret for you." Norrington squatted down to be eye level with the boy. "I'm only supposed to tell you in case if you figure out who's in charge of the pirates, only if you figure it out all by yourself without me telling."

"Will Turner."

"Yes! So since you know, I'm supposed to tell you something." Albert looked delighted. "Captain Will says you can have the same deal as last time, and he also won't steal your food, if you run away a white flag."

"Run up, you mean?"

"Run up."

Norrington seethed. He looked over to the Black Pearl, which had come around and was so close now that he didn't even need a spyglass to make out most of its details. Her guns were out and the deck full of pirates. His men, meanwhile, were busy in the water fishing out traitors who were actually in league with these criminals!

And this boy was one of them. "Well you may tell Captain Will," he said, so angry that his voice was shaking, "That I offer him the same deal I got for Jack Sparrow!" He stood up and barked at one of his soldiers: "Pick him up!"

The man picked Albert up over his mother's loud protestations. "Over," Norrington said shortly.

"Over, sir?"

"Over." He pointed. "Let Captain Will fish him out." The soldier shrugged and, while his colleagues held a screaming Charlotte away, carried the boy over to the railing and dropped him over.

They could hear him scream "Woohoooooo!" all the way down.

Practically foaming at the mouth, Charlotte broke free and dove overboard herself. It was a long way down, and the impact knocked the wind out of her and confused her terribly. Where was Albert? Damn these soldiers and these pirates!

Finally she saw him, waving cheerily at her some distance behind. She wriggled out of the jacket the soldiers had covered her with, and started to swim towards her son.

"Mama! Look!" he called. She turned to look. Aside from the two boats that were still out rescuing prisoners from the sea, there were now also three or four loose soldiers in the water. She looked up at the ship and saw two more preparing to jump. They crashed into the sea, surfaced, and swum towards her.

"It's not right," one of them told her when they reached. "Throwing over a little bugger like that."

"Pardon his tongue, mum, but that's it exactly," agreed the other. "We came in after you to make sure you're all right til a boat gets to you. Others are coming, too. On principle, like. Nobody likes tossing over a little one to die."

Strong men thought they were, Charlotte noticed they were having a harder time staying afloat than she was.

"The coats," she gasped at them. "Take them off - I've been told it makes all the difference between swimming and drowning."

The Pearl was maneuvering oddly, coming in at an angle. Norrington tried to make sense out of what he was seeing. "There'll be no broadside like that," he murmured. "What does he think he's-" He had a bad feeling about this battle. "Hold fire for my signal," he ordered. "Forget those people in the water, get those boats back up here. Let everyone know that if any of my men are still wasting time with that child, I'll have them court-martialed. Is that clear?"

Four years as Norrington's right-hand man had taught Gilette when it was not wise to ask questions. "Aye aye, sir." He elected not to point out that nearly half their crew was busy - either helping with rescue efforts, diving overboard as a sign of protest, or working crowd control on the hysterical women and children who had been saved from the ocean. Gilette thought they would fare much better throwing themselves on the reliable mercy of Will Turner than they would in a battle with these bizarre pirates, who for some reason were making their ship dance about in the strangest ways to avoid the possibility of any ordinary naval fighting. Norrington probably wouldn't want to hear that now, Gilette thought unhappily – it was too creative. Lately he had been more and more exclusively receptive to things that came only in black and white. A shame, that. But what could one do?

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When Jack woke up in the morning, Elizabeth was gone but Barbossa was sprawled out next to him, asleep (and fully clothed). Comfortable as he was, Jack decided to get up and get dressed straight away because there were things he had to do and say that would probably be much more dignified if they came from a man wearing something besides a pair of lacy underpants.

He put his clothes on, making a multitude of faces because they were still damp, and shook Barbossa awake. The Deception game had to be addressed. "I know what you did, mate," he said. "I know what was really at stake." Barbossa frowned, not yet understanding, but Jack decided he had said enough. There was no need to embarrass the old pirate by saying straight out that his fear of Jones's undeath was painfully apparent, or that it was in fact quite touching that he had braved it for his friends' sake.

Jack picked Barbossa's hat up off the headboard of the bed and dropped it over his face. "You just stay here and get some more beauty rest," he advised. He lowered his voice as if to tell a secret: "You need it."

The cabin door was open, so either the Dutchman had surfaced or Elizabeth had elected to drown herself rather than share his bed. Jack hoped it was the former.

He didn't like wandering this ship alone, so he made a beeline for the deck, correctly predicting that she would have staked out a spot of railing and would be staring off into the sea.

He did not predict, however, that Davy Jones would be standing there with her, getting a moral lecture. "-so much power," Elizabeth was saying, "and you squander it. That's all. I don't-"

"I think I make very good use of my power," Jones argued. He made a sweeping gesture around the ship. "These men? Dead. Without me they-"

"-And a lifetime on the Dutchman is so much better?"

"They seemed to think so!" Jones was getting himself all worked up. "I offered them a choice."

Elizabeth turned to face him and actually touchedhis arm. "I'm sorry, I'm not making myself clear. I don't condemn you for what you do - I'm just frustrated at what you don't do. There's so much potential here for you to do such good..."

Derisive laughter. "And why would I want to do that?"

Elizabeth opened her mouth and then closed it, stymied. She looked out to sea again. "I talked a lot to Will's father last time I was here," she said after a moment. "It seems to me you did right by him – you gave him a period of limbo and he used it to make his peace with death. I think that's wonderful, Davy, I do. I just think he was very much in the minority, that's the problem."

From where Jack was standing he could hear the squidman's tentacles squelching unpleasantly. Agitated, then? She was getting to him?

"I agree that Bootstrap Bill had a grip on philosophy that surpassed most philosophers," Jones said with a short laugh. "I used to test him sometimes. To force him. He always chose well."

"See, that's what I mean," Elizabeth challenged. "You could have just praised him for his strengths, instead of putting him through hell to make him demonstrate them." She didn't look at him when she asked: "Do you really think you're doing them a favor?"

"I do," he said with finality. "When I take them in, they're afraid of death. By the time a hundred years are up and it's time again to die, they're begging for death. It's an arrangement that works out for everyone."

"But why must they be begging for death? Why not just ready for it? You could style yourself as a teacher rather than as the devil."

Jones snorted. "Why the devil would I want to?"

Jack knew there was no good answer to that, so he interrupted the conversation before Elizabeth tied herself in any more knots. "Morning, boys and girls."

Completely engrossed in their discussion, Jones and Elizabeth were startled at his intrusion. Jack came as close as was comfortable for him - about eight feet. "Where are we?"

"Almost there. You were right, Sparrow - there's blood in the water, some of it Turner's. I don't know what happened to your precious Pearl, but I do know we'll easily catch it before Beckett's anywhere near the place."

"Blood," Jack echoed thoughtfully. He had a surprisingly accurate guess of what had happened. "Once we see how they are we'll know better what to do. It's your call, mate - you're the one with everything at stake."

When he said the decision was Jones's to make, what he meant was Jones could say whether they should team up with the Pearl to take the heart by force, or order the Pearl to change course and wait for a more opportune moment to make the heist. Jones, though, had a completely different option in mind. He knew that Sparrow's plans might work out, but he was sorely tempted to call everything off and simply sink the Black Pearl as Beckett had ordered. That way, even if he didn't get his heart backjust yet, at least he knew it would be safe for now.

Because with Sparrow in the mix as part of the rescue mission, not to mention that crazed child Will Turner, who knows what would happen even if the mission were successful?

On its own, Jones's moustache reached up to massage his temples - one of the benefits of being part octopus.

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TBC.

Jury's still out on Davy Jones. And Norrington, for that matter. He used to be a good man if something of a stick, but in DMC his sarcastic sense of humor ("...the day Captain Jack Sparrow almost escaped," "Nothing I'd lament being rid of," etc) was replaced with a nasty streak a mile wide. So I'm not sure yet what I think about him. Bitter, disillusioned... but maybe okay, underneath it all? Dunno yet. My story from a couple years ago, Your Bloody Friend Norrington, is incredibly sympathetic towards him but I'm not sure I like him as much now as I did then.

Leave me some lovin and I'll see if I can post again Sunday. Monday, perhaps.