They drew Beckett further and further out to sea, carefully keeping just barely out of range to keep him interested. "This is far enough," Will decided at last. "We're turning around."

"Rash as ever, Turner," Norrington scoffed without even bothering to look at him. "We'll wait a little longer, make sure your friends have had enough time to take care of their business, and then we'll go back for them."

"We are out too far," Will argued. "If the Kraken comes..."

"Mr. Turner," Norrington lectured him as if he were a small child, "the Kraken is on our side now, didn't you listen to a single word of Sparrow's plan?"

Will shook his head. "We think Elizabeth and Barbossa stole the heart. We think Beckett has no more leverage over Jones. But Beckett and Jones might not know that. Therefore they might still send that monster after us. Norrington... Jack said he showed you what it did to him. Do you really want to take that chance?"

Norrington swallowed, and took a moment to make sure he was not confusing cowardice with prudence before he admitted that Turner might indeed have a point. "Very well," he said, "Just a little further and then we'll bringer her about. I just hope your friends have had enough time to hide the heart and row to where we can pick them up."

"I have faith." Will went off to give the orders. While he was gone, Norrington did a bit of thinking and was mildly disturbed to discover that he had faith, too.

"Run out the guns," he told Gibbs, the only pirate to whom he deigned to speak directly. "Beckett will think we're turning to fight, he'll probably fire on us, so we might as well fire back." He got a distinct glow out of giving the order to fire on Beckett's ship, and didn't even stop to think that that was not the sort of thing a determined anti-pirate crusader ought to do.

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It would be nice, Barbossa thought, if he could kill all the fish-people and make it out alive.

Hah.

More realistically, it would come down to striking a very fine balance between fighting as long as possible in order to kill as many as he could, and shooting himself before they managed to take him alive.

He had four pistols and they had none. One point in his favor. Leaving one bullet aside for his escape, he drew and fired the other guns in quick succession as soon as the fish-people were in range. He hadn't quite lost his touch, it seemed: Eleven enemies became eight plus a cripple.

There was no point waiting around. They were charging and he charged them right back, waving his cutlass, bellowing at the top of his lungs. On the way in he threw his knife and scored a direct hit into someone's face. Heh, heh, that probably hurt.

And then they all got in range of each other's blades, and at that point there really wasn't much strategy left.

The first real trouble wasn't his fault – it's tricky to defend yourself against even one person with a sword who is trying to kill you; it's extremely difficult when there are two of them, and when you get to a crowd of five or six who are all attacking you at once, survival becomes downright impossible. Barbossa knew someone had got to his back and sensed the blow coming and twisted partially out of the way. It was the best he could do. It missed his head by inches and sliced instead, funnily enough, into exactly the place on his shoulder where Elizabeth had given him her tiny little cut all those weeks ago.

No pain yet, just a grinding sensation that he recognized as steel on bone. He didn't let it distract him from the creature whose eyes he was gouging out. His grip on its head allowed him to drag it around, circling, keeping it between him and the others as long as possible. His sword had become entangled in fish entrails and he couldn't pull it out until he had a moment to wipe all the goopy blood off his hands and get a good grip, so until then he thought he would just relieve this corpse of its crusty mace and use that.

Things were still going all right despite all the blood, until the second serious setback –which was his fault. Having become completely berserk in the heat of battle, Barbossa was so concerned with the one he was trying to kill that he completely failed to notice somebody next to him swinging a club.

It struck him hard in the leg and he lost his balance and went down. Arr, that better not be broken. On his knees in the shallows, for the first time he noticed that the water around him was all red with blood - human blood. The fish-people pressed in around him and he realized he wasn't going anywhere. Then this is it, he told himself. Don't miss your chance.

He drew his last pistol, put it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

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Elizabeth had been told time and again that she'd done the right thing leaving Jack to be eaten by the Kraken. It was not her fault, people said, not her fault at all. Now, this was even less her fault than that incident, because it was Barbossa's own idea to stay behind and cover their escape, against everyone's strenuous objections. He wasn't exactly known for his self-sacrifice; he probably had perfectly good reasons for staying and Elizabeth steeled herself to respect his decision. For a little while she thought she was going to be able to do it.

But no matter what Jack told her she couldn't not watch. And the very first time she saw him get hurt, she found she just couldn't take it.

"Jack, we have to go back." He ignored her. "We have to go back!"

"No!" He put down the oars and grabbed her before she jumped out of the boat. "Shh, come on, love, don't make this any harder. Elizabeth, really, I can't." He turned her so she couldn't see the shore. "Stop it. I mean it. There's nothing we can-"

"Liar!" She twisted away. "I can't leave him, Jack, I'll never forgive myself. I have to try."

He, too, was beginning to lose his cool. "Stop it! Elizabeth, stop it, I won't go, I mean it, I really won't."

"Now who's afraid of fish!" she screamed at him. "You want to stay, stay. Elizabeth is going!" She jumped out of the boat, kicked off the ground, and started to swim.

She wasn't even halfway there when Jack overtook her.

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Click.

Time stood still. I don't feel no different. Barbossa could hear the words of his idiot crew bouncing through his head. Did it work? How do we tell?

He could taste the rusty metal in his mouth and that meant his mouth was still working and that meant he hadn't succeeded in blowing his head off. His gun had misfired.

Somebody who smelled like rotted seaweed grabbed him by the hair. Something that was encrusted with barnacles and sharp little bits of shells hit him in the face. It stunk, it hurt, and it distracted him enough that when they dunked him in the water, he completely forgot to try inhaling for a quick suicide. Instead, his body fought for life with everything it had and he struggled mindlessly to break the surface. Eventually the fish-people let him up again for a moment, at which point he gasped in desperate gulps of air before they forced him back under.

And then he felt air again, and smelled their stench, and heard someone very close to his ear hiss, "Well, looky here - isn't that sweet?" He opened his eyes and at first all it was was a blur. Then he made out shapes swimming towards them. Jack and Elizabeth.

He was in such a bad way that he didn't even think to feel humiliated at how glad he was to see them. But they're so far away...

"Isn't it sweet?" The fishman repeated. "They've come to help you... but all they get is to watch you die! Too bad - they're just a few wee little minutes too late!"

Oh, like hell they are, you idiots. Barbossa's panic had vanished and he had his wits together again. It was possible that his friends were going to save his life, but he knew it was much more likely he was just going to drown. Since either way he wasn't going to the Dutchman, as far as he was concerned, Jack and Elizabeth had succeeded already. As Jones's minions pushed him under for the last time and stood on him, he reminded himself to pretend to struggle for a few seconds so that they wouldn't realize what he was up to. Then he just relaxed, and waited for everything to go dark.

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After their victim stopped moving and no more bubbles came up, the fish-people took to the water very abruptly. Probably to report straight back to Davy about this little incident, Jack predicted, but he didn't waste much time thinking about it. He was too busy trying to reach Barbossa's body in the (slim) hope that there was still time.

Even Elizabeth could tell long before they reached him that he was face down and not moving. "Jack, we're too late," she gasped. She was completely winded but still found the breath to sob.

"Never say die, love," Jack answered, half to himself. He reached the body and flipped it over, which had no effect whatsoever except to make bloody ripples in the water.

Elizabeth looked away, needing all her strength to fight the urge to collapse next to him in hysterics. "Jack…"

"No. Nono, absolutely not, I said no!" Jack dragged Barbossa to the sandbar and splashed down next to him in the wet sand. "Elizabeth. Elizabeth! Get your ass down here now, woman!"

Her instinct had been to back away and avoid the unpleasant spectacle of Jack going to pieces at the death of a good friend, but when he snapped that command to her, he didn't sound one hundred percent irrational. Panicking, desperate maybe, but still… not unhinged. He was together. She went down on her knees beside him and tried not to look down.

"I'm here."

"Breathe for him!" Jack ordered urgently.

"Do what?"

"Breathe," Jack demonstrated an exaggerated inhalation, "for him." He pointed down.

"I- I don't understand-"

"Give him air!"

Well, Elizabeth knew what that meant, at least - she'd heard it said often enough for fainting women. She leaned back to give them some space, but that only seemed to frustrate Jack more.

"Oh, bugger," he muttered. He made several unhappy faces and flitted about from one angle to another as though looking for the one that was least objectionable, then just bit the bullet and did it himself.

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Elizabeth went bright red. "Oh. Oh. That's what you..." Jack was holding Barbossa's nose closed with one hand and had the other on his chest, where he could feel the rise and fall of the air he was forcing in – through his mouth. Elizabeth understood the genius of it but also couldn't bite back an unsteady giggle – she was lightheaded and distraught and it looked so very much like they were kissing.

Jack's head shot up. "Not funny," he said grimly, wiping blood off his face. "It's not working." He tried again for a few more breaths, then paused to listen. "Come on, mate, breathe," he whispered, his tone teetering on the edge of urgent and panicked. "Breathe. Once more, then," he muttered, bending down.

He put his mouth on Barbossa's one more time and a moment later was completely drenched when the captain exploded like a geyser.

Barbossa was most definitely not dead.

Elizabeth was so glad to see him alive that she couldn't bring herself to look away. On the other hand, he was in such a sorry state that she could hardly bear to watch, either. She soon began to believe that seeing him writhe in the mushy, bloody sand at her feet was even worse than seeing him drown in the first place. He was truly a mess. The force of his retching pulled him up from his back to his side, and he lay curled up, clutching at his stomach and convulsing beyond control. Elizabeth hovered uncertainly, wanting to put a hand on his shoulder as much for her own sake as for his, but blood was cascading down from someplace and she didn't want to accidentally touch the wound. Eventually he passed from vomiting to choking. No more water gushed out, but he seemed unable to draw a successful breath – he would gasp in great gulps of air and cough them right back out again with horrific violence.

Elizabeth still couldn't find her voice, but she finally put a hand on Barbossa's waist and gave a little squeeze to let him know that somebody was there. Jack just sat and waited it all out patiently. When Barbossa was finally able to quiet down, suck in a few deep breaths and prop himself up on an elbow, waterlogged and exhausted, Jack flipped a dripping lock of hair off his face for him. "You almost drowned, there, mate. We would've had to turn that ship right around and go back for you."

Barbossa's eyes were even more bloodshot than usual as he squinted up at him. "I'm alive?" he asked hoarsely.

"Had us scared for a minute, but yes."

Barbossa noticed then that there was something not quite right about Jack's smile. Warm, concerned, almost maternal. Elizabeth was sitting with her hands over her mouth, still looking shocked, and then he had a thought...

He poked his tongue around for a moment, tasting. He wasn't sure because his mouth was full of his own blood, but… "Please tell me it was Elizabeth who..."

"Fraid not."

"Eughh! You should have just let me drown." Barbossa rolled away and dragged himself up to his knees, flinging water all over with every movement. Ignore the shoulder. He felt for his flask but it wasn't there. "I need something to rinse my mouth out with."

Jack looked him over for a moment and wrinkled his nose. "So do I." His eyes lit up. "And I have just the thing!" He dove for Elizabeth and tried to kiss her.

"Eughgh! Jack!" Elizabeth was still so weak with relief that it was all she could do to hold him at arms length, laughing.

"Yarrr! Me first!" Barbossa heaved Jack out of the way and launched himself into her lap. He was alive. Before she could think better of it, she put her hands to his cheeks, not minding all the blood, and helped him rinse his mouth out.

He rinsed it well enough that Jack felt obliged to turn away and clear his throat very vigorously.

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TBC.

((grins)) Couldn't resist, mate!

For those of you not down with mild(ish) Elizabeth/Barbossa makeout sessions, you may want to skip the next chapter ;o)

Which I will post as soon as possible, for love of those few awesome readers who leave me thoughtful reviews every time they read. Unlike the bulk of ya lurkers :o/

Yarrr!