Author's Note: Okay, folks, here's the plan. I've decided to update this story once a week until the story is done. Every Friday, guaranteed. Yay! We have a plan...but there's only five chapters left. Figures.

I apologize for this chapter's shortness. I do hope you all can forgive me. :)

Chapter Twenty-One—Breaking Curses: Take Two

Barbossa waited until the twice-marooned pirate and his two companions were out of sight before looking back at Will and Amber. Amber folded her arms, feeling slightly cross at him for keeping her from the fun on the island, but that was nothing compared to the hatred just burning off of Will at the moment. He was still gagged and was therefore kept from verbally attacking the pirate, but the attempts to take his life with the blacksmith's very eyes left no question his feelings for the man.

Barbossa just smiled his evil little smile and addressed the Bo'Sun. "Lock the boy in the brig opposite the others. I'll take the girl with me." When the Bo'Sun nodded and took Will away, Amber shot Barbossa a dark look and moved her arm out of reach of his hand.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Barbossa said, rolling his eyes. "I just saved your life, keeping you on this ship."

"Don't expect me to thank you," Amber said crossly, mimicking his eye roll. Barbossa just smirked, taking his place at the wheel. He said something to Pintel and Ragetti that Amber couldn't hear, but she was certain she knew where they were going as they started to head below deck.

"Can I go with them?" she said, not entirely sure why she was acting like she needed permission. But then she remembered she was still a captive on this ship, though it no longer felt like it.

"And give you the chance to run away?" Barbossa asked casually, turning the wheel in his hands to suit his direction.

"Where am I going to go, here on this ship in the middle of the ocean?"

Barbossa considered this. "Fair point, lass," he said. "But what interests have you in the people in the brig?"

"What interests have I in the man at the wheel?" Amber responded.

It was the first real laugh Amber had ever heard come from Barbossa. "Just for your wit, lass, you may go as you wish on this ship. But I when we reach Isla de Muerta you remain by my side, where I can be certain you make no attempts at escape."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Amber raced off in the direction Pintel and Ragetti had gone, humming happily at the thought of getting a chance to talk to Will again.

-o0o-

"You knew William Turner?" Will asked of the two pirates outside his cell, but before they answered Amber came clamoring down the steps.

"Don't start the story yet!" she insisted, grinning at all of them, but especially at Will, who smiled back. She found a nice spot on top of a barrel near the blacksmith's cell, and swished the skirts of the dress she still wore down over her feet, getting comfortable. "Hello, Will," she said cheerfully once she was situated.

"Hello, Amber," Will replied, looking genuinely happy to see her. "I'm glad you're safe. You're all right?"

"Never better," she chirped back.

Pintel and Ragetti exchanged glances, then turned back to look at the lady. "Does the captain know you're here?" asked Pintel suspiciously.

"Of course," Amber answered, mocking surprise at their doubt. "You can go ask him if you'd like, but I think your time would be much better spent sharing your knowledge of Bootstrap Bill with the class."

Pintel and Ragetti exchanged one last glance, and then Pintel nodded, continuing his work swabbing the floor. "Aye, ol' Bootstrap Bill," he said in a storyteller voice. "We knew 'im. Never set well with Bootstrap what we did to Jack Sparrow, the mutiny and all. He said it wasn't right with the Code. That's why he sent off a piece of the treasure to you, as it were." Pintel looked up at Will. "He said we deserved to be cursed, and remain cursed."

"Frankly, I'm surprised more of you didn't feel guilty over it all," Amber said before she could stop herself; "but then, I guess you are ruthless pirates…"

"Amber," Will said in a whisper, completely caught up in the tale of his father's past. "Please." Out of that one word, Amber gathered she shouldn't interrupt, because Will really wanted to here this.

"Oh, right. Sorry, Will…"

"Well, as you can imagine," Pintel said, "that didn't sit too well with the captain."

"That didn't sit to well with the captain at all," Ragetti mimicked. "Tell 'em what Barbossa did."

"I'm tellin' the story!" Pintel snapped, glaring at Ragetti. The other man nodded, and Pintel turned back to face his audience. "So, what the captain did, he strapped a cannon to Bootstrap's bootstraps—"

"Bootstrap's bootstraps…"

"—The last we saw of ol' Bill Turner, he was sinking to the crushin' black oblivion of Davy Jones' locker," Pintel finished mysteriously. Then, as an afterthought, "'Course, it was only after that we learned we needed his blood to lift the curse."

"Sorry—but I never did really understand why you needed his blood to lift the curse. Can you explain that to me?"

"Amber!"

"Sorry, sorry…"

The room fell silent as footsteps slowly thunked down the stairs. Then Barbossa appeared and gestured for Amber. "Up you come with me, lass," he said. Amber sighed and walked up the stairs to the deck. Behind her, she heard Barbossa toss the keys to Ragetti and tell him to bring Will up.

Back on deck, Amber could see barely, on the horizon, a tiny little black dot: the Island of the Dead, she assumed it must be. It didn't look they were going to reach it anytime soon, but Barbossa seemed to have decided to get ready early; even as Amber stood and watched, Will was brought up and tied with his hands behind his back, and then was taken of to the side, held by a bored but menacing looking pirate Amber didn't recognize.

Amber didn't take her eyes of Will and his captive until she was suddenly aware of Barbossa standing beside her; she startled a little, because he had come up behind her soundlessly, but he didn't notice. In his hands, he was holding a bit of rope, and Amber immediately folded her arms stubbornly, guessing correctly to his intention. "No," was all she said.

Barbossa grinned again. Amber wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that the pirate found her amusing and entertaining—she supposed it was more of a good thing; Barbossa could be really cool if you were on his good side. "No?" he repeated to Amber, and nodded his head. "All right—no. But I'm warnin' yeh, lass, I even suspect you're getting up to something;" he held up the rope and dangled it before her eyes; "yes."

"It's like you don't know me at all, Barbie," Amber said, pretending to be hurt. "I'm a little offended at your lack of trust—haven't you figured out by now I'm not going anywhere? I can be a good little captive." She smiled, and seeing that night was nearly upon them and that Isla de Muerta looked a tad bigger than it did before, flounced away to go find a way to pass the time before she and Will were taken off board.

-o0o-

It turned out to be a longer wait than Amber had originally thought, but no one disturbed her as she walked around on the ship, humming a tune, occasionally saying a word or two to Will, who could only reply with the briefest of words—the pirate holding him didn't seem to enjoy it when Will did anything but stand still—and once or twice, she even said hello to a few pirates on the deck, who snarled back. Not disheartened at all, Amber went, humming another tune, to go and see what Barbossa was doing.

"Nearly there, Barbie?" she chirped, wishing she had something crunchy to bite into. She considered thoughtfully going down the captain's quarters to get an apple—but then decided her freedom on the ship might not expand that far.

"Nearly," he replied shortly, not taking his eyes from the horizon. "Won't be long now."

"Good deal," Amber said, and then a thought struck her. "Barbie, are you going to hurt him? Will, I mean?"

Barbossa's eyes flickered briefly to hers. "Yes." Amber nodded slowly; she was quite unafraid of for Will, obviously, but she also found herself somewhat disappointed in Barbossa.

"But you hardly hurt Elizabeth!"

"And you see where that got me, now don't you, lass?" he said, sounding slightly menacing. Amber crossed her arms and turned away from him.

"I thought I knew you," she said, the first thing to come to her mind. Stopping to consider that remark, it made little sense. She did know him—and therefore knew he was capable of hurting Will. Oh, well. It sounded good, anyway.

Perhaps, had Barbossa acknowledged her remark, he would have told her exactly what she had just realised, but instead he did not even look at her, let alone say anything. He had grown more intense all of the sudden, and after a few moments of long, drawn-out silence, he began shouting orders. Amber didn't listen to them very well, because none of them considered her. Besides that, she suspected already what they were about: they had reached Isla de Muerta.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Amber found herself in another dinghy sitting between Will and Barbossa. Will's hands were still tied, which from experience Amber knew could be slightly unbalancing in a tiny little boat, but there was nothing she could to help him; it had been enough of struggle to even get Barbie to let her sit this close to him (turns out he still didn't trust where her loyalties lay), and touching him was out of the question.

And so they rowed in silence, until they reached the island, and Pintel and Ragetti came up to walk beside them and talk to the man named Twigg, who was holding Will. "No reason to fret," he said to Will, "just one prick of the finger, a few drops of blood."

"No," Amber said sadly, shaking her head. She felt Will tense beside her, but before she could elaborate, Twigg did.

"No mistakes this time," he snarled. "He's only half-Turner. We spill it all!"

Pintel hummed thoughtfully. "Guess there is reason to fret," he said to Ragetti, who laughed accordingly.