Thank you Kairi's-twin, johnnydeppluver89, and LM1991 for your reviews!

Author's Note: Don't worry, everyone. Laura is actually going to hang out with Will a bit more during this movie and the next.

Simple Treasure-Hunting…or Not?

Following the incident with the undead pirates, Laura continued traveling with Jack and enjoying the adventures that came with being around him. She also managed to find a ship for Anamaria soon before picking up six new crewmembers at Tortuga.

This all lasted for approximately a few months, at least to Laura, who wasn't paying any particular attention to how much time passed.

To her, she was simply resigning herself into the pirate life. Although the younger Turner had been a pirate since she was twelve, the only real reason for her piracy had been to find her father and brother. During the "cursed coin" incident, as she so fondly called it, the girl discovered that she did not really have any family left; her brother had completely forgotten her and her father was most likely long dead on the bottom of the ocean. Because of this, Laura began trying to enjoy the life of piracy even more…

--

As one of his little schemes, Jack, along with Laura, snuck into a Turkish prison in order to confiscate an item…the matter of which Jack did not reveal to even his companion.

Following a near capture, the two pirates managed to hide themselves in already occupied coffins.

Being thrown out into the sea within her wooden tomb, Laura counted down from ten before blowing a hole with her pistol in the top of her craft. Ripping the hole larger, she sat up and looked around in the fog, soon hearing a near-by crow land on something wooden. As the girl looked in the direction of the noise, a hole (and unfortunately the crow) was blasted by a pistol shot from within the coffin floating close to her own.

Jack popped out and casually, if not stupidly, looked about before reaching back down the hole for his hat and donning it.

"Well," Laura greeted, "it's nice to see that you made it out in one piece as well, Jack. Now, do you mind telling me what it is we went in that living sewage dump for?"

"All in time, luv," her partner casually responded as he broke off the leg of his coffin's original occupant and used it as an oar before talking to the skeleton he was sitting on.

"Sorry, mate. Mind if we make a little side trip? I didn't think so."

Laura rolled her eyes, annoyed, as she copied the captain's action, following him towards the waiting Pearl.

--

Tossing the bony leg aside, the piratess climbed onto the ship after Jack, who was conversating with Gibbs.

"Not quite according to plan," the first mate pointed out as the captain handed him his leg-oar.

"Complications arose, ensued, were overcome," Jack outlined.

"So you got what you went in for, then?" Gibbs asked.

"Mmm hmm," Jack replied, waving a piece of rolled up brown cloth in the air.

"That's it?" Laura mumbled.

Suddenly, all of the crew, including Gibbs, was standing in a group facing Jack and his female companion.

"Captain," the grizzly man explained, "the crew, meaning me as well, were expecting something a bit more shiny. What with the Isla de Muerta going all pear-shaped and reclaimed by the sea, and the treasure with it."

"And the Royal Navy chasing us all around the Atlantic," one of the new crewmembers called Leech added.

"And the hurricane," the short little Marty put in.

-Hey! They weren't THAT bad-

"Aye!" all of the crew, except for Laura, shouted.

"All in all," Gibbs continued, "it seems some time since we did a speck of honest pirating."

"Shiny?" Jack asked in turn.

"Aye, shiny," the first mate confirmed.

"Is that how you're all feeling then?" Jack replied, seemingly casual as Laura calmly reloaded her gun. "That perhaps dear old Jack is not serving your best interests as captain?"

"Uh-oh," Laura quietly fretted.

"Ahh! Walk the plank!" Cotton's parrot cried out before being silenced by its owner.

"What did the bird say?" Jack questioned, pointing his pistol at the creature.

"Do not blame the bird," Leech defended. "Show us what is on that piece of cloth there."

Before Jack could do anything, the tag-along, Jack the undead monkey, jumped from nowhere and grabbed the piece of cloth.

Laura quickly shot the animal as it landed on the deck, causing it to drop the cloth.

"You know that won't do no good," Gibbs complained to the young woman.

"Does me," Jack countered as Marty picked up the item in question.

"It's a key," the short man stated.

"No," the captain once again argued, "much more better. It is a drawing of a key."

As the pirates' only reaction was to stare at Jack, the man continued,

"Gentlemen, what do keys do?"

"Keys…unlock things?" Leech idiotically suggested.

"And whatever this key unlocks, inside there's something valuable," Gibbs put in, "…so we're setting out to find whatever it is this key unlocks."

"No," the captain replied. "If we don't have the key, we can't open whatever it is we don't have that it unlocks. So what purpose would be served in finding whatever need be unlocked, which we don't have, without first having found the key what unlocks it?"

"So," Gibbs said uncertainly, "we're going after this key."

"You're not making any sense at all," the captain argued. "Any more questions?"

"So," Marty asked, "do we have a heading?"

"Ah, a heading," Jack caught on, opening his compass. "Let's set sail in a general…"

Laura, who was the only one other than Jack in view of the compass, became worried as the arrow frantically spun around. Jack's pointing finger followed its direction, giving away the uncertainty to the rest of the pirates.

"…that way direction," he finished, pointing randomly into the fog.

"Captain?" the seasoned sailor questioned.

"Come on, snap to and make sail, you know how this works," Jack said before walking to his cabin.

Laura stayed behind long enough to hear Marty talk to Gibbs.

"Have you noticed lately, the captain seems to be acting a bit strange…er."

"Setting sail without knowing his own heading," the other man answered. "Something's got Jack vexed, and mark my words, what bodes ill for Jack Sparrow bodes ill for us all."

Laura shivered at the thought of Jack not knowing what he was doing before heading into the cabin after her captain.

--

An hour later, Laura was resting in a corner of Jack's cabin, while he was attempting to decipher their course. He would have easily done it, if not for the jumpy direction of the compass.

"Jack," the girl addressed her leader, "why are you acting different than usual? It's as if you're nervous about something, and it's affecting the crew. You were almost mutinied early."

Ignoring his companion, Jack looked at the empty rum bottle next to him.

"Why is the rum always gone?" he randomly asked as he got up and stumbled to his hat on a nearby chair.

"Oh," he stated, realizing that he had drunk it all, "that's why."

"I'm coming too," Laura called after him, tossing the empty rum bottle in her lap onto the table.

One floor down, they passed up the snoring crew in their hammocks.

"As you were, gents," Jack said when they continued to sleep at his approach.

Laura quietly laughed to herself when she saw the teddy bear hanging from Marty's bed. She had become quite fond of the crew over time, except for the occasional whispers of mutiny which she was usually able to quiet.

In the storage room below, Laura went the opposite direction of Jack in their desperate search for rum.

While fishing through old papers, broken bottles, and the like, she heard a noise which sounded like a bottle breaking as it fell to the floor.

Hoping to catch Jack hoarding a stash of rum by himself, Laura tiptoed toward the noise's direction.

What she saw was far from a stash of rum. In fact, she saw Jack talking to a man who appeared to be covered with sea and plant life.

"…so he ended up a pirate after all," the man was saying.

"And what do I owe the pleasure of your carbuncle?" Jack asked, not noticing Laura, who was still hiding in the shadows.

"He sent me. Davy Jones."

Laura shivered at the all too familiar name and began digging through her mind in search of any information which might be useful in deciphering the reason for this eerie visitor.

"Ah," Jack was saying, "so it's you then. He shanghaied you into the service, eh?"

"I chose it," the man defensively answered. "I'm sorry for the part I played in the mutiny against you, Jack. I stood up for you. Everything went wrong after that. They strapped me to a cannon, I ended up on the bottom of the ocean, the weight of the water crushing down on me. Unable to move, unable to die, Jack. I thought even the tiniest hope of escaping this fate, I would take it. I would trade anything for it."

-Wait a second, why does that story seem familiar? I understand the "Davy Jones" part, but why does this man's story seem so… I don't know!-

"It's funny what a man will do to forestall his final judgment," Jack said as he walked away, only to be cornered by the man.

"You made a deal with him too, Jack. He raised the Pearl from the depths for you, thirteen years you've been captain."

"Technically," the captain began before the man interrupted.

"Jack, you won't be able to talk yourself out of this. The terms that apply to me apply to you as well: one soul bound to crew one hundred years upon his ship."

"Yes," Jack tried talking again, "well the Flying Dutchman already has a captain, so there's really no…"

"Then it's the Locker for you!" the man broke in once more. "Jones' terrible leviathan will find you and drag the Pearl back to the depths and you along with it."

"Any idea when Jones might release said terrible beastie?" Jack weakly asked.

"I already told you, Jack," the man answered while putting his hand onto Jack's palm. "The time is up. It will come, drawn with ravenous hunger to the man what bears the Black Spot."

At that, the man disappeared and Laura walked up behind Jack just as he looked at his palm where the man had touched it. A fearful sight met their eyes: the Black Spot.

"Well Jack," the girl said, trying to sound calm, "it seems we have another big adventure ahead of us."

"Mmm-Hmm," the captain uneasily replied.

"These are just guesses, but, from what I gathered, you made a deal with Jones for him to raise the Pearl out of the sea for some reason, thirteen years was the contract's length, you were to be captain, you were going to try talking your way out of it, even though you agreed to serve a hundred years on his vessel afterwards, and now it's been thirteen years and the contract is up?"

The captain simply said "mmm-hmm" in response to every stated fact.

"Alright," she lightly continued, "then I suppose this would be the time for you to panic."

At this, Jack frantically ran up the stairs, shouting at the crew, followed closely by a semi-calm Laura.

"On deck all hands! Make fast the bunt gasket! On deck you scallys! Scallys! Movement, I want movement! Run, keep running! Run as if the Devil himself and itself is upon us!"

Laura sighed at Jack's panic, which caused the deck to become a mess of chaos.

-I didn't mean literally-

She leaned against the stairs leading to the helm as Jack wrapped a cloth around his marked hand and was approached by Gibbs, scaring the captain more than he already was.

"Do we have a heading?" the man asked.

"Run! Land!" Jack shot out.

"Which port?" Gibbs further questioned.

"I didn't say port, I said land. Any land!" Jack replied before the monkey swept down, grabbed Jack's hat, and threw it into the sea, causing all of the pirates to attempt its rescue.

"No, no! Leave it. Run!" Jack yelled, stopping the shocked pirates in their tracks.

"Back to your stations, the lot of you!" Gibbs confirmed. "Jack?"

Jack had hidden behind the stairs.

"Shh!" was the answer.

"For the love of mother and child, Jack, what's coming after us?"

"Nothing," the captain quickly replied as Gibbs stalked off.

"Jack, get a hold of yourself," Laura urged prior to going into the Captain's Cabin to figure out where they were going.

Thanks for reading! Please, R&R!