Hi everyone! Again, please review! It doesn't have to be long, and I love suggestions on how to make my work better, or how the plot should go, or anything else. I'll listen to good and bad reviews, so please, R AND R! Chapter Thirteen

Suicide Contemplations

Beckett crumpled to the floor. Karissa gasped and held a hand up to her mouth, looking as though she were about to vomit. I felt the gun slip out of my hands and land on top of my fallen savior's chest with a muffled thump, then sank to my knees.

Outside, I was dimly aware of the rest of the military retreating. I heard heavy footsteps dancing around on deck, and strained my ears to hear a couple lines of A Pirate's Life for Me.

Karissa gasped, not removing her hand from her quivering lips. I closed my eyes, wishing it all away, all of it, all of it, all of it…

"How can so much have happened in one day?" Karissa asked, stuttering. "Your parents back, Beckett dead, that story they told you…"

I averted my eyes from the man who had once possessed life, which I had robbed from him. "I'll be in my cabin," I said shortly.

I turned to go up the stairs, still refusing to accept that any of it had happened.

When I arrived above deck, all the pirates in Jack's crew were singing songs of victory. All of my crew were cleaning up after the battle, occasionally joining in with the men in a verse or two before returning to work.

I moved through the crowd, trying to stay on the edges. No one noticed me. Well, good. That was the way I wanted it. My little plan would never work if someone did.

I pushed open the door to my cabin violently, slamming it against the wall. I wasn't crying. I was numb. I couldn't feel anything.

I didn't really think about what I was doing. The movements came naturally to my fingers as I lifted a sword up- I didn't care if it was mine, if it was Jack's- at the moment I wouldn't have cared if it was Davy's. Instinctively, I felt my hands steadily aim the blade at my heart…

Crash. Someone had come from behind and tackled me onto the dried pineapple wrappings. At first, all I could see was dangling beads, but then I realized that it was Captain Jack Sparrow who had saved me from myself.

He ripped the blade from my hands and rolled over so that he was on top of me, his dark, dark eyes ablaze with anger and… wild, wild, wild fear. I had never seen him so scared. I had never seen anyone so scared, not even Karissa just before Beckett was about to kill her. I stared in shock at this new expression, then returned to being numb again.

Neither of us spoke for a while. He just kept staring at me in that odd way, like he had just realized someone had poisoned his food and was waiting to die. Finally he threw the sword across the room, where it created a brilliant arc through the air before landing on the bed. He then turned to me again. I hadn't bothered to get up off of the pineapple wrappings, and was just lying there. Nothing mattered anymore. I had robbed an honest man of his life. I was no better than a pirate myself. I didn't care what Jack did next.

"Sade," he whispered throatily, like he had just died several times over. "Why?"

I gave him no response.

"You're torturing me," he continued in the same tone. "If you had done that, I never would have been able to forgive myself."

No emotions surfaced within me. Jack could go away and never return for all I cared.

He sank next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. Unlike the many times he had done so in the past, his hand didn't start slowly and suggestively creeping toward my chest. He kept it in place, shaking. "Isn't there anything I can do to make you know that people care about you? That life is worth living?"

"You shouldn't care about me," I droned indifferently. "I just killed an innocent man."

Jack gaped at me for a minute. Somewhere deep inside, I felt satisfied. I had finally made the world's most infamous pirate speechless. "So that's what this is about."

"Yes."

"You killed him."

"Yes."

"My heartiest congratulations! Come, have a drink. And some dried pineapple, love. This is an event to be celebrated." He smiled and got up. The place on my shoulder where his hand had been was suddenly cold.

"Jack." Finally, I was crying. "He's dead. I killed him. He's dead and I killed him. I'm worthless. I'm an awful person. Give me that sword. You'll be happier without me."

I started toward the sword. Jack, moving faster than I'd ever seen anyone move in my life, blocked me, arms outstretched, and pulled me into a tight, tight, tight hug.

"My darling," he murmured in my ear. "My poor, poor, poor darling, I don't know how I lived without you."

Something about his calm tone of voice, or maybe the words he spoke, or something about it calmed me down. "Jack," I sobbed, crying, harder than I ever had in my life, into his shoulder.

He pulled me close, and when I surfaced from the safe fortress of his arms his eyes had that look again, like he was the one in danger, not me.

"Sade," he said sadly, putting more emotion into his voice than ever before. "You are worthy to be loved. If anyone here doesn't deserve the other's company, it is I who don't deserve yours."

I sobbed harder, and leaned on his shoulder. I didn't believe him.

"Sade," he whispered. "Please tell me you won't do that again. Promise me."

His eyes had such feeling in them that I wished I could. But I shook my head sadly.

"No, Jack, no. I can't do that."