A/N: Thank you to Jennifer Lynn Weston, Rokhal, TavyBeckettFan, PirateTrixi, Panzergal, Calathiel of Mirkwood, Starling Rising, JaxLass, and Eldonyx for reviews! Every single review thrills me to no end and I'm very grateful. Special thank you to those of you who have faithfully reviewed each chapter. I didn't expect anyone to start doing that and it means a lot to me!

To Panzergal: Your review really made me smile. I am delighted that you continue to enjoy this and your really sweet words about my style really are so confidence-inspiring. Thank you very much!

Disclaimer: I am setting up a camera to record the chaos outside my hiding place. Just now, Hercules grabbed one of Cinderella's shoes and threw it against the wall. Thankfully, Cinderella's shoes are unbreakable. This is making her laugh, and Hercules is getting really red in the face. And I still don't own POTC.

Chapter 7

They tried to fight it. They really did. Jack smirked at Beckett like he was the most laughable person he'd seen in his life. Beckett scowled and tried to think of threats. But all efforts were for naught. Terrible Teamwork was too powerful, and seconds later, they were both resigned and trying to figure out where to start searching.

Beckett lit two more candles from the pile they'd collected. (They asked me not to tell you about the candle pile because this monument to Teamwork mortally mortifies them. Unfortunately, they had no money with which to bribe me).

Of all the surfaces, the floor was the grossest. This was duly noted. And by mere eye contact, they decided to start with the walls. They didn't even need to talk! This turned their faces more sour than five lemons.

"The back?" Beckett gritted.

Jack could only grunt and flap his good hand. They shuffled to the back of the pantry. Two large barrels kept them from coming right up to the wall, so they stood side by side, staring.

Jack eased away from Beckett, casually resting his shoulder on the left wall. He saw that Beckett had done the same thing, leaning on the shelves across the way.

Searing glances of loathing were exchanged.

Stones neatly mortared together, gray, rectangular, and bored. That was what Jack and Beckett saw when they examined the back wall of the pantry from three feet away.

Touching and pushing and knocking on the wall changed nothing. Leaning over one of the barrels, which came up to his waist, Jack glanced down into the mysterious shadows behind it. He threw an arm around the barrel, and heaved. It barely rocked. "What the dickens is in there?" He pried the lid off and saw a massive bag of flour that had been ripped open. "Delighted t'make yer acquaintance," he muttered, replaced the lid, and then looked up to see what blistering statement Beckett would make.

The agent was peering into the corner of the pantry. Slowly, he pulled himself up onto the second barrel and peered more closely.

Only the right wall had shelves. These shelves ended five inches from the back wall, leaving a blank little space to be adored by spiders and shadows. Into this space Beckett extended a potato, wiping thick webs away. Jack joined him, careful not to lean against the agent's legs, which were whiter than his stockings had been.

The space had been a solid mass of fibers. But now many of the webs were ruined. As Jack watched, the webs swayed in a breeze, and not because Beckett was breathing on them. In fact, the agent was holding his breath.

Jack wished he wasn't close enough to know that.

Past the film of web, Jack saw ragged stone edges. There was a black hole. It looked big enough for a mouse. Jack's heart sank.

"Carrot," Beckett said.

Jack scrambled to fetch one. Beckett cleared the hole out with the carrot, jumping when a large wolf spider scrambled down the wall. Jack huffed in a amusement.

"Well." Beckett set the carrot in as far as it could go, defeated. "There's where the smoke went...through a hole a mere six inches in diameter. Blast, the air coming out of there reeks."

Beckett was disappointed. Jack wished he wasn't disappointed, too. He felt that he should should commiserate with Beckett–a fate worse than death. He brightened. "P'raps it opens into a corridor. We should try yelling."

Beckett turned frigidly toward the pirate who stood before him. The agent had to repress the urge to kick the pirate. "By 'we' I suppose you mean the 'Royal We.'"

"Wot?"

"When royalty says, We'll take care of it, what they really mean is, Everyone else except us will take care of it, because we're royal. So when you say 'we shoud try yelling' you really mean 'you should try yelling.'"

"There is somethin' in that noggin of yours!" Jack said as brightly as he could. His head was starting to burn. "Congrat'lations."

Beckett shook his head with lofty disgust, leaned toward the hole and shouted, "Hello out there!"

Beckett's compliance made Jack grin from ear to ear. We're makin' progress.

An ear-splitting scream shot from the hole like a spear. Beckett recoiled so fast he tumbled onto the other barrel. Jack blinked and realized he was pressing himself against the far wall, adrenaline singing through his body in dizzying waves.

Both men stared at each other with huge eyes as there came the faint sound of distressed gibbering. The voice was male. Then another scream made their eardrums crackle and the hair on their necks stand straight up. More gibbering.

They remained still, anticipating the next scream with dread.

The sobbed nonsense slowly faded, and then perfect silence settled. Jack poked at his ear, which was ringing so loudly it made his head ache. A terrible thirst had slowly grown in his mouth since he'd been branded, along with the pain in his wrist. Soon his mind would be devoured by his body's cry for mercy, and needling Beckett wouldn't be enough distraction.

"Are we next to the torture chambers?" Jack asked.

Beckett mutely shook his head.

They waited.

"There must be a cell beside us," Beckett finally said.

"Wif a banshee inside."

Beckett didn't agree or disagree. He took a deep, steadying breath. There were rings under his bloodshot eyes and his lips were chapped. "We need to discover whether he can talk, or if he just screams. If he can talk, there's a chance he can alert the guards."

"They'll find us," Jack said. "Really, truly, unchangeably find us."

"Yes," Beckett answered.

For Beckett, being found meant everything good. For Jack, it was another matter. Beckett saw Jack's face go quiet and flat, and knew that the pirate was considering his options. Jack probably did not want to be found. Or worse, Jack might want to be found, but he would want Beckett dead before the searchers arrived. Jack was wounded and weakening, but he was cunning and if push came to shove, Beckett wasn't sure of victory.

Jack blinked. "Let's see what the banshee can do."

Beckett repressed a sigh of relief and edged back over to the hole. He took a deep breath and glanced back at Jack, who was watching with a strained expression. Then he turned back and said softly into the opening, "Who are you?"

Both men scrunched their heads down, ready for the inevitable scream.

There was a squeak and loud shuffling noise, like someone was scrambling away. "We won't hurt you," Beckett said. "We need your help."

Whimpering started, and then it escalated into a wail, which escalated into another mind-shattering scream that lasted for at least five seconds. Beckett jumped off the barrel and joined Jack against the wall.

The scream stopped, and then the screamer took a deep breath. Beckett cringed, but Jack lurched to the hole, half-pulling himself onto the barrel. "Shut up, y'lummox! Or no dinner fer you!"

There was a sputter. "I be a good boy, Mum, I swear..." The response, thick with a Welsh accent, was like the rasp of holystone over planking.

Jack grinned over his shoulder at Beckett, who looked ready to either burst out laughing or slam his head against the wall.

"'Course you're a good boy," Jack crooned into the opening. "What's yer name?"

"I'm the froth on th'waves wot gets stranded on the sand. I'm th'oyster wit'out no pearl, the shell what gets smashed under the treasure hunter's heel."

Jack opened his mouth. Then he closed it.

"Sonny knows big words," Beckett murmured.

"Yer sense of melancholy sunders me mother's heart," Jack said earnestly into the stinking darkness. "Now what's yer name?"

"Already told ye!" There was a hysteric edge to the response.

"Aye that's right, y'did," Jack said hastily. "I'll just call you Insane Rob fer short. Who put you in this terrible place?"

"Men wit' snowy faces. I seen no one fer years. When dandelions lose their fluff, graves lose souls."

"A fountain of macabre despair, ain't ya? Mum's so proud."

"This won't get us anywhere." Beckett's warm breath filled Jack's ear and the pirate leaned away so fast he cracked his head on the back wall. Beckett shifted so he wasn't touching Jack's legs. "We had better chances when he was screaming."

Before Jack could muster a proper glare, ominous whimpering began next door. "See what you did!" Jack hissed at Beckett.

"Indeed, I see quite well." Beckett smirked as the whimpering became sobs.

Jack elbowed Beckett in the chest to make him back off, then put his face up to the hole again. "Mummy's here!"

Honest-to-goodness wails were the response.

"No dinner!" Jack tried, but it was in vain. Jack's own vocal chords shivered as Rob's wail climbed and thinned into a razor scream. Swallowing desperately, Jack slid off the barrel and stood helplessly with Beckett as Rob paused for breath and went at it again.

"This is good. They'll find us in no time," Beckett said complacently, voice raised over the racket.

Suddenly a pile of filthy straw shot from the hole and fell onto the barrel. Insane Rob's breathing was so close, it filled the entire pantry, and when he screamed again, the stones themselves seemed to quiver. More straw and now stones fell out of the hole, and then Jack realized what was happening.

"Rob's filling the hole!"

"Let him. We can open it up again."

The two men waited as the frantic soul closed up the hole, Beckett's expression weary but smug, Jack's pained and sad. Rob continued to scream when he had the breath for it. Once the hole was stuffed, he retreated and the racket abated somewhat.

"You British call yerselves civilized," Jack snapped, "but every barbaric act I've seen's been at British hands."

Beckett smiled at him. "We employ anything we must. And for barbarians such as that, there's only one language they can understand, and it's...barbaric."

"Then you're nothin' but a shapechanging monster what'll have the entire world at its throat. The British empire's waxing, but it'll wane by its own hand."

"Oh, don't say things like that, Jack! Words like that take men to gallows. And it makes you seem so disillusioned with us."

"I am." All humor had left Jack's face, leaving it gray and old. "Oh, I am."

Beckett stepped lightly up to the hole and listened. He smiled excitedly, but there was a manic gleam in his eyes. "Someone's pounding on the door to Rob's cell and telling him to be quiet!" He pawed the stone and straw stuffing out of the hole as Jack sauntered unsteadily up.

As soon as the hole was cleared, Rob's screaming started again, drowning out the dull thuds of guards' fists on his cell door. Jack sighed. He didn't see Beckett's eyes widening savagely, or his breath coming faster as something snapped in his soul.

Suddenly Beckett threw himself at the hole, one hand slamming into the edge. Jack lurched back. Beckett pressed his face close to the opening. "Keep screaming, you slimy b-----yes," he shouted, "yell until your throat is raw until it shatters just like that cursed seashell you claim to be!"

Slowly, Jack backed away as Beckett continued to rant, his cruel words mingling with Rob's cries and sending them higher and higher. Beckett's scraped, grimy hands were in fists, his entire form coiled and ferocious and out of control.

Jack watched, eyes squinted against the bedlam. He'd never seen Beckett so violent, so red. He had no doubt that trying to intervene would trigger a terrible attack. He leaned back against the pantry door, feeling the world softening around him. His ears were crackling, smarting. His head was beginning to ring like a huge bell, every noise reverberating, like fists smashing into his burning skull.

The world softened further, and Jack kept his eyes fixed on a fuzzy Beckett. Oddly, he saw Beckett as a boy, cowering on the floor, being yelled at by a huge father with...three eyes?

"S'always the parents what have t'be blamed for the evils of their offspr..." the words in Jack's mouth shriveled in a Sahara wind.

He wondered what he had just said. He wondered why the atrocious dryness in his mouth seemed to be spreading throughout his entire being. He felt his body yawn wide and wanted to jump into a pool of silky water so badly, he shattered.

Hello, fever.

Jack lowered himself to the floor, good arm shaking under his weight. It felt good to rest his head, but the relief he had hoped for wasn't there. The heat, the pain, the ache, in his body only grew.

"You're just a pathetic bit of cow dung!" Beckett was still going strong. "For some reason you think you're entitled to good treatment and humaneness when in fact you've broken the law and you deserve every bit of misery you suffer! You're no more than a worm who crawled out of the gutter and who's been put back where he belongs!"

Insane Rob kept screaming, louder if it was possible. Jack plugged one ear and wished he could plug the other.

"You and all the cesspool trash like you," Beckett snarled, "whining and groveling and getting hurt when you're punished for crimes you've committed, filling the streets with misery and filth, better that you're locked away from the sun so no one can see you. Better you're all simple and stupid so you can be manipulated and swept aside by those who know there is no right, no wrong, no code, no morals, only good business!"

Rob screamed, but Beckett screamed louder, "I hate you!"

Jack took a deep breath and bellowed, "Be quiet, y'wench-hearted priss!"

Beckett's mouth snapped close and he turned toward Jack with a murderous expression. "What did you just call me?"

The screams trailed off into gasping, rasping breathing.

Jack shrugged one shoulder, glad for the door at his back. "I'd call that exhibition there a towering rage, but it just doesn't seem right, seein' as you're shorter'n most women."

Beckett's head snapped back like he'd been slapped.

This would either humiliate Beckett into his former iciness, or put Jack into a worse world of hurt than he was already in. "You officially lost control," Jack said slowly. "Like yer father, aye?"

Beckett's face had been murderous before. Now, all color drained from his cheeks. Even the candle light could not warm his pallor. Suddenly Jack was gazing at a cherub who had fallen out of Heaven to Hell...and then, impossibly, out of Hell and into a place where all was ice. A world where every surface sharp enough to cut...a slit on Beckett's cheek glared red. His lips were a second gash across his face. He sat on the barrel like a sculpture, stockings hanging about his ankles, hands descending slowly, ominously, into his lap.

"Your try at deciphering my tragic past was clumsily done, Jack." Beckett paused. His calm voice was worse than his yell. "You'll regret it."

Jack nodded.

Then he stiffened and made a choking noise, branded arm spasming. He slammed himself against the door, sobbing for breath as waves of agony surged up his arm.

Beckett's gash of a mouth curled slightly. No noise issued from the hole. Insane Rob had gone silent and the guards had gone. Black despair, like a snake, curled around Beckett's throat as he slid off his barrel and slowly approached Jack.

Ye gads! What is a-happening! Ye nice peoples, review if you please! Tell me if something doesn't make sense!

Head over to Calathiel of Mirkwood's profile and read Innocence of a Child. She has a gift for writing Jack, especially his reactions to young children. Actually, I'm constantly trying to write Jack like she does!

Have you checked out Rokhal's Captain Turner and the Organ lately? Rokhal has an incredible imagination and the world of the Dutchman becomes a wild, wonderful thing in her capable hands. Read it!

You ever wondered what the heck Jack did after he bobbed away from Tortuga at the finish of AWE? If you have, you must read JaxLass's Which Way Lies True. This is an excellent story by a witty writer!