A/N: Ackkkkkkk. We took way too long for this update, and we're sorry about that. So sorry. Real life gets in the way, you know? But school ends in three weeks for us, so we should have way more time to write!

Thanks so much for all those who've read, favorited, followed, and reviewed this story! Also, we would like to ask of you to check out "The Pirate Princess" by TheNeverlandImagination! We love her story, and it's about Hook's daughter. Seriously, check it out!

We hope you guys like this chapter! We've worked very hard on it, and it's pretty long. The twins meet a very notable character, but how will they react to the real world? Please read, review, and enjoy! Thanks so much! :D

Chapter 3: A Whole New Universe

Melody's Perspective

I could hardly summon a scream as I was twisted and jerked around in all directions. For a brief moment, it occurred to me that this very well could be my death, and it seemed strange that only a few minutes ago I would have rejoiced, but now it was so unfair once we gained the smallest hint of freedom.

And then it was over. We dropped through the cold, crisp, foreign air right onto a metal balcony of sorts. The landing was jarring and painful and made my teeth rattle.

Blindly, I groped around for Jack and sighed with relief as my hand made contact with his shoulder. "Jack," I asked with eyes still shut, "are you okay?"

He only groaned in response, and I finally peeled open my eyes. Bright sunlight was the first thing that struck me and I hissed, shielding my gaze. Yes, we had light during the daytime in our prison, but it came from a sliver under the door. Nothing as vivid as this.

Once my eyes grew a little more used to the light (still not fully), I surveyed my surroundings. We were high up in the air outside of a window, connected to a ridiculously tall building. My breath caught in my throat and strangled me as my vision cleared enough for me to take in everything else.

Buildings, so many enormous buildings. There were people milling around in flocks wearing the most bizarre clothes I had ever laid eyes on. Small, metal, brightly-colored creatures carried some of these people around with black wheels attached to the bottom. The noise was positively maddening.

"Oh my God," Jack breathed next to me. "Where are we?"

Before I could reply (not that I had any sort of knowledgeable answer), the window behind us slid open and a handsome face of a dark-haired man with equally dark eyes appeared. His eyebrows were knit together in confusion and Jack and I scrambled as far away as we could from him.

He lifted his hands up in a surrendering gesture. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you two. Do you mind if I ask . . . how'd you two get here? One moment, I glanced out my window and there was nothing there and the next you two were here. I've heard about raining cats and dogs, but not kids." He smiled hesitantly as he made the joke, but I remained unamused- only because I was so terrified.

His grin faded and he slowly made his way onto the balcony- in response, Jack and I cowered even further away. "Guys, I'm safe, really. What are your names?" When we stayed silent, he went on as if he hadn't asked, "My name's Neal. Do you two want to come in? It looks like you haven't had a decent meal or shower in a really, really long time."

Well, he was right about the cleaning part and somewhat correct about the food. We were fed often enough, but in such small portions that it amounted to not enough for us. When we still didn't budge, he sighed and told us, "Be right back."

Jack and I exchanged a bewildered look as he ducked back inside his home and reappeared a minute or two later with three plates of food. He pushed two of them towards us and surprisingly, sat down and placed the third on his lap. "I haven't eaten lunch yet, I figured we could eat together."

I didn't need any more encouragement- I snatched my food off the plate (it appeared to be two slices of bread with meat and the like inside) and bit into it. It was savory and the flavors sang a song and melted into my mouth. This was the best food I'd had since before my imprisonment and my empty, starving belly roared in approval.

Jack was attempting to stuff the entire thing into his mouth and I noticed, through my food euphoria, that the man named Neal was watching us rather carefully. "You don't have to inhale it," he chuckled, "it's not going anywhere."

Once I finished (which was in a very short time), I tentatively pushed the plate back toward Neal, unsure of what to do with it. Neal cleaned up our dishes and entered his home again. He left the window wide open.

Curiosity got the better of me and I scooted over to the window, peeking in without invitation. "Mellie!" Jack hissed in warning. "Don't go in there, it may not be safe."

There was a thing about me that I inherited from my mother that never changed in all the years I'd been alive. When people told me what to do, I had a burning desire to do the exact opposite and this was no exception.

My feet were on the floor of his home before I knew what was happening and Jack hopped in right after me, his protective nature presumably kicking in. Neal was loitering in his kitchen, looking entirely unsurprised that we entered. He casually pointed to the seating arrangement in the main room. "You two can sit down if you want."

I took him up on his offer by hoisting myself over the back of one of the couches and curling up into a tight ball. Jack seated himself right next to me and took my hand.

Neal for some reason still kept his distance in the kitchen. "So, I told you my name, fed you, we're pretty good friends by now, right?" he joked and I dared a tiny smile. "What are your names?"

"Melody," I finally replied and Neal grinned, probably triumphant that he got us to speak to him.

"That's a pretty name."

"I'm Jack," my brother piped up, probably feeling a little left out. His eyes never stayed still, flickering all around the room as if expecting some kind of trap.

"Nice to meet you two. Are you from around here?" Neal asked.

Jack and I shared a look. "No, not really . . . ," I replied. "If you don't mind me asking, where is here?"

Neal's eyebrows shot up. "You don't know where you are?"

"We're just temporarily lost," Jack countered. I squeezed his hand; Neal might not have caught it, but I could sense his pride bubbling up.

"Well, this is New York City," Neal informed us, still confused. Apparently done with standing alone in the kitchen, he walked around the couches and sat down in a chair across from my brother and I.

I shared another look with Jack. New York City? Neither of us had ever heard of a place called New York City, despite all our travels in our childhood, and Jack practically knew every map we'd had on board like the back of his hand. Just how far from any place resembling home were we?

"You sound like you're fresh out of England," Neal remarked, but we didn't know where that was either and he quickly caught onto that. "But you haven't heard of that either, have you?"

"Of course we have!" Jack was becoming defensive.

Neal snorted and I glowered at him. "Yeah, well where in England are you from? Name a city, any city." We stayed silent. "Thought so."

"It's hard to explain," I expressed, frustrated.

He studied us closely and I felt uncomfortable due to his scrutinization. "I'm guessing you two are not from around here," Neal said matter-of-factly, that little snippet of information didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. "Like, really not from around here. Y'know," he leaned in like he was telling his deepest, darkest secret and Jack and I involuntarily moved closer, "when I was a boy, I lived in a land far away from here. Judging by your clothes and, er, your lack of knowledge on certain everyday things, I can't help but wonder if you two are from there as well."

"We can't tell you if we're from there if you don't tell us where you're talking about," I dryly remarked, my lips tweaking up into the semblance of a smug smile.

He smiled too and shook his head lightly. "Ever heard of a magic bean? Believe it or not, that's how I got here. There were a few, uh, adventures on the way, but I ended up here in the long run."

Before I could stop myself, I gasped, "You're like us?"

"More than you know." He smiled at us warmly and for the first time in, well, several hundred years I supposed, I felt truly at ease.

"You know, don't take this the wrong way, but . . ." He shifted awkwardly in his seat. "The two of you aren't the cleanest kids I've met in my time and, uh, if you want, you can use my shower."

What in the bloody hell was a shower? I stared at him blankly, not even pretending to have the foggiest idea what he was going on about. He was politely insinuating that we stunk, I knew that, but his solution was entirely foreign to me.

Neal seemed to grasp our ignorance and stood up abruptly, beckoning us to follow him. Jack and I glanced over at each other and shrugged in response, tailing him over to a washroom of sorts. The pieces of furniture inside were beyond strange.

"There's something in this world called indoor plumbing," Neal explained, pointing at this bowl of porcelain filled with water. "We don't have chamber pots anymore. We use this, and flush it all away."

Out of curiosity's sake, I turned the lever he was pointing at and jumped about a foot in the air when the water inside of the bowl swirled around like a whirlpool. "This is madness!" Neal smirked down at me.

Jack adjusted one of the knobs above a shallow white basin and gave off a rather unmanly shriek as water poured down from the pipe-like structure. "I didn't mean to do that!" he defended himself like a small child caught red-handed.

Neal chuckled lightly and reached over, turning the knob to its original position. "Yeah, that must come as a bit of a shock- there's something called running water now. Like this." He walked over and slid open this thin, translucent door open to reveal a bathtub of sorts. There was a dull, brass-colored knob on one side and as Neal tweaked it to the side, a shimmering waterfall streamed down from an arching pipe-like structure.

"So, Melody, how about you go first? You turn it to the left if you want it hotter, and the right if you want it colder, and," he reached over and displayed two moderately sized bottles, "this is shampoo. You put it in your hair, then rinse it off, and this is conditioner. You put that on after the shampoo, but you rinse it off too. You can use that brush in there to comb out your hair. And these things right here," he pointed to these crusty pieces of fabric, "are called towels and you dry yourself with them when you're done. You think you got all that?"

I nodded hesitantly; it was an awful lot to remember, but I was clever enough. I'd figure it out.

"Well, we'll leave you to it," Neal said, exiting the bathroom, but Jack didn't budge. An expression of sheer, unadulterated terror shadowed over his features and a cold shock of fright rattled my system. We hadn't been separated for over several hundred years, so this was entirely new for us. I couldn't bear the thought of my twin being out of my sight. "Jack? You okay, there, buddy? C'mon, let's leave your sister alone and let her take her shower."

His thin frame visibly trembled and moisture threatened to spill from his eyes. This was just as hard for him as it was for me. Still, he managed to force himself to follow Neal out, but I knew full well that he wouldn't leave the other side of that door. The thought calmed me somewhat.

I closed the door behind the two of them, the last thing I saw being the gleam of fear in Jack's brown eyes. I fought the urge to fling the door open, tackle Jack with a hug, and cry my eyes out. This all was so . . . overwhelming.

But I didn't, because I needed to be brave. So, I stripped myself of all my awful clothes and stepped into the shower, releasing a squeal of surprise as I found the water to be hot. Hot, running water? What kind of world was this?

I didn't expect the feeling that came along with it- it was amazing. Centuries of grime and dirt and stink just swirled down the drain, and I felt like a whole new person.

My first task was to use the shampoo as he told me to (it was an odd, frothy substance) and then the conditioner. It was immensely difficult to even attempt to disentangle my matted curls of hair, but try I did.

After a few minutes, I noticed my hand shaking and tears blurring my vision. I couldn't do this, any of this. I felt like half a person without Jack by my side, and I already missed him so intensely that it scared me. I just couldn't survive without him.

Along with that, this new world was so confusing and foreign to me. Was this real? Or perhaps it was just a wild dream to entertain me as I lay sleeping in our awful prison. But I wasn't waking up.

I lost every single ounce of control I had left and crumpled to my knees, my body wracking with bitter sobs. It was all too much. I couldn't handle this.

More than anything, I wanted my parents back. Now that my brother and I had finally acquired freedom, it was all the more evident to me who was missing. I didn't want my freedom without them.

My beloved momma was ripped from this world so horribly and so very young. She was a beautiful person, inside and out, and I still missed her with every fiber of my being.

And then there was my daddy. As much as I cherished my momma, I was a daddy's girl and everyone knew it, just as Jack was a daddy's boy. Was. I admired and adored him so much, practically worshipped the ground he walked on, so when I was taken from this man who I looked up to so dearly, it shattered my heart into a million pieces and stole my soul. He was my protector, my hero, . . . my daddy.

Was. He had to have been long gone now, and it sent stabs of agony through what semblance of a heart I had left, knowing that he must have died a broken, lonely man.

I only wept harder now. Daddy lived out the rest of his life alone. Why me? Why this family? What did we do to the world to deserve our unbearable suffering?

A sharp rapping on the door startled me out of my hysterics and in came Neal's yell of, "Melody, are you all right? Do you need me to come in there?"

I managed to choke out through my tears, "I'm okay." It was a lie. I hadn't been okay in so many years and I didn't think I'd ever be okay again.

Jack's Perspective

I leaned against the wall beside the door to the shower room, and Neal sat down beside me. I was content to listen to the sound of the shower, but Neal seemed to find it a bit awkward, and spoke up.

"So, uh, what was your life like before? Yours and Melody's?" Neal asked.

I stared at the floor as if it would answer for me. "We lived on a ship, with our mum and dad. We were pirates. My dad was the captain of our ship, and I was supposed to take over when I was old enough."

Memories of my childhood rose to the surface of my mind; memories of happy days, and Melody's laugh, and my momma's singing, and my daddy's warm smile that made us feel like nothing could ever harm us. I forced them away.

Something held me back from continuing the story. Maybe I just needed a minute of silence to reassure myself that Melody was still okay, that she was just on the other side of this door, or maybe I just wasn't ready to relive the events of the worst day of my life again. It was probably both.

"One day, this awful crocodile appeared on our boat, and he was mad at our momma for something. He killed her; stuck his hand in her chest and ripped out her heart . . . and crushed it." I stopped here, swallowing down the tears and grief and sobs. I had to be a man and be strong for my sister.

Neal looked like he wanted to say something, but I wasn't done yet. "The crocodile, when he saw us, decided to take us away from our daddy. He cut off our daddy's hand, and, and . . ."

I took a long, shaky breath in a futile attempt to hold myself together long enough to finish my story. "He locked us in a tower for a few centuries. He cast this spell on us so we wouldn't age, so he could leave us there for as long as he wanted. . . ."

Tears started to fall down my cheeks, but I refused to give them sobs to accompany them. So I just cried in silence for a minute, while Neal sat awkwardly beside me, just letting me have my moment. At some point, Neal started to rub slow, comforting circles on my back, which calmed me down enough to stop crying.

I just couldn't believe that we were free. It was too good to be true. I knew, I just knew, that the crocodile was going to pop up sometime and tell us it'd all been a joke; a bit of entertainment for his sick, scaly mind. The world we were standing in seemed so surreal. Running water and . . . Bloody crumpets, how high in the air were we?

"Jack, I ought to tell you something," Neal admitted. I turned my face toward him, rubbing absentmindedly at my damp and reddened cheeks. Neal's face wore an expression unlike any I'd seen from him so far, but was not unrecognizable; it was the look of painful memories.

"The crocodile, he was my-"

A loud thump came from inside the bathroom, startling me to my feet and dismissing any worries I had about what Neal had been saying. The shower was still running- I could hear it- but it now carried an undertone of sobbing.

"Mellie?" I murmured worriedly under my breath, speaking more to myself than my sister or Neal. More sobs.

"Mellie!" I shouted, throwing myself at the door in a desperate attempt to reach my sister. My desperation was comparable only to when the crocodile stood before my mother with her heart in his claws.

Neal leaped up with an exclamation of surprise and put his hands firmly on my shoulders, stopping me from breaking down his bathroom door (which, of course, I was fully capable of doing. Wood stood no chance before the great Jack Jones!). "Whoa there Junior, calm down."

"Melody, are you all right? Do you need me to come in there?" Neal shouted through the door, knocking on it repetitively. Melody was still sobbing in the shower and I was nearly hysterical at this point, straining against Neal's hands in my attempt to reach the door.

"Mellie!" I cried again, but my throat was hoarse, and her name came out only as a muffled croak. I'd started crying again, and it felt as if I couldn't control my breathing; or my heartbeat, for that matter. My chest rose and fell uncontrollably and the only thing I could hear other than the shower and Melody's sobbing was the rush of blood in my head and my own turbulent heartbeat.

"I'm okay," Melody replied. I struggled a little less, because I wanted to believe her words. Are you really? Because I'm not.

"Okay," Neal called back. My knees started to shake and I sank to the floor, kneeling, as my head fell forward into my hands. The sobs shook my entire body. I didn't care anymore, about what it was Neal had to tell me. It could wait. I was not okay.

"What did we do to earn this?" I demanded of no one in particular, my question itself being hardly more than an intelligible breath into my palms, which were sweaty from stress. Neal didn't hear my question, although he probably wouldn't have said anything if he had. He didn't know enough.

"Cracking crocodile, fecking crocodile," I cursed quietly. Neal hovered uncertainly by the bathroom door. I would've had a soap bar stuck in my mouth after that, I thought, a fresh wave of tears making its appearance.

Throwing my head back, I shouted at the heavens, "You'll pay for your sins, crocodile! I know you're still out there, and I'm telling you that wherever you are, whatever protections and spells you have, they're not enough to stop me! You'll pay for this, for tearing my family apart!"

My shoulders heaved, and I stayed there for a few minutes, head thrown back and mouth open, panting, as I let the tears finish rolling down my cheeks. I'd done more crying today than I would've liked to, and I was still separated from my beloved sister by a ridiculous slab of wood (which was still powerless against me. I could beat it down anytime I felt like it), and we were in a stranger's house in a strange new world with no indication of where or when we were.

At some point, I realized the shower water was no longer running. Like a dog pricking up its ears, I sat up straighter and fixed my gaze on the bathroom door with avid focus. If I concentrated, I could hear the soft rustle of fabric and Melody hiccuping softly.

When the door opened, I jumped, startled, then nearly trampled Neal to reach my sister. Melody, wet-haired and looking much cleaner than ever, even with her filthy clothes, rushed out, and we nearly smacked heads in our reunion. Steam and warm air trailed after Melody, winding invisibly around us as I crushed her against me in a hug, exhilarated that the weak door was no longer between us. She hugged me back just as forcefully.

Neal coughed to separate us after a moment, and we broke apart a little reluctantly. I couldn't resist the urge to hold Melody's hand, and she didn't seem to mind. "Jack, maybe you should take a shower now?"

We just bloody went through this very trying ordeal, and you expect us to do this whole thing again? I wondered, staring incredulously at Neal. Melody had to ask him to repeat the sentence, she was so baffled by it. She was clearly seriously questioning his intelligence.

"Melody and I will sit right here and you can shower, Jack," Neal said. He then added, "If you guys are going to be okay with that."

I met Melody's red-rimmed blue eyes (which were totally unfair. Why was I the only one in the family- the two of us- with brown eyes?) and silently asked her if she was willing to do this. Lady's choice, right? I only needed to see a slight glimmer of acceptance in Melody's eyes, and she in mine, for us to nod affirmatively at Neal. The fact that we nodded perfectly in sync was completely accidental.

Neal waved a hand at the bathroom, indicating that I should go in. I squeezed Melody's hand, then let go and walked into the bathroom as if I were going to battle for my life against a ferocious beast. I might as well have been.

It took all my focus to keep my hand from shaking as I closed the bathroom door between us. It was just a flimsy piece of wood; either Melody or I could break it down anytime we felt like it. The door was only closed and in one piece because we were allowing it to be. We used to be pirates for God's sake, we handled dangers worse than doors. Melody would be exactly where I'd been: right outside the door. I turned around and faced the shower.

Curiously, I approached the shower, and tried to remember what Neal had shown Melody and I about how to use it. I tapped at the knobs. Nothing happened. I tried pulling on them. Again, nothing happened. Something about turning them, I think . . .

I gave the knob a twist, and jumped back when the water turned on. It was cool at first, then warmed up. The water changes temperature, too? This world is strange. I then realized I was still fully dressed, and slithered out of my grimy clothes to step into the shower.

The water was so pleasantly warm that I was content to stand in it and enjoy its heat for a minute before I actually began using the shampoo and conditioner to scrub centuries worth of dirt and grime out of my dark brown locks. The water running down the drain was almost perfectly brown.

Staring at the shower tiles, I began to wonder what had caused Melody to break down in here earlier. Probably, like me, she'd been thinking about mum and dad. We're so far from home now. Would they be proud of us, for surviving in this strange place?

After a few minutes, I was forced to step out of the shower. My skin felt tender and slightly raw from having not been scrubbed thoroughly in so long. Neal's towels were soft and fluffy, a totally foreign experience for me. Now that the shower water was no longer running, I could hear Melody talking with Neal outside the door if I was very quiet. By the way she sometimes paused the conversation to just sit in silence for a few seconds, I guessed she was checking to hear me as well. It comforted me in a way that made me feel like someone had wrapped my heart in a thick blanket.

When I had dried off, I folded my towel on top of the toilet and slipped back into my clothes, which now felt offensively heavy with dirt and grime. Compared to Neal's fluffy blue bath towels, the material of my shirt and trousers was rough and scratched at my tender skin.

I was anxious to get back to my sister, but the mirror above the sink caught my eye as I reached for the door handle. Pausing and backtracking about half a step, I stood on my tiptoes so that I could see myself in the mirror a little better. Grinning, I waggled my eyebrows at myself and struck a pose or two. It'd been so long since I had access to a mirror that I simply couldn't refuse such a blatant opportunity to admire my devilishly handsome face.

At the right angle, I looked almost identical to my dad, except for a few minor changes. I had my mum's nose. And curse my brown eyes. Why couldn't I have blue like the rest of- like Melody?

"You're still pretty fecking handsome," I reminded my reflection. My reflection grinned at me. Something told me Neal wasn't learned in the language of pirates, and therefore wouldn't be able to scold me for using all the vulgarity I felt like.

Now that my ego was sufficiently satiated, I pushed down the door handle, cool air rushing in from the hallway outside.

"Jack!" Before I could even begin to prepare myself, a pair of arms wrapped themselves around my neck in a suffocatingly tight choke hold- er, "hug." I patted her on the back soothingly. "Neal was telling me about clothes he could give us, so we don't have to wear these bloody ugly rags any longer."

"Hell yeah," I cheered in response as Neal scrambled to his feet, a smile playing at his lips now that the two of us were relatively calm. Shame burned me up inside; I hardly knew the man, and yet, I was perfectly fine with blubbering all over him. There was something about him that allowed a certain casualty, and I felt surprisingly comfortable around him. Almost like I already knew him from somewhere else, or we had this special connection. Mellie had to have felt it, too.

He began to trudge along his narrow hallway, tossing over his shoulder, "Follow me, kiddos, it's time to get you some new clothes- and burn the ones you're wearing."

We chuckled at his little side remark as he led us into what presumably was his bedroom. It was a mess, more so than my old bedroom on the Jolly Roger (and that was quite a statement). This was just pathetic. Clothes were scattered all over the floor, the sheets spilled off the bed, drawers were open and threatening precariously to fall out . . .

"You could trip and die in this room, and nobody would know," remarked Mellie slyly and I bit back a snicker at Neal's abashed, playfully outraged expression.

"I resent that- don't look the gift horse in the mouth!" He began to shift through his horribly disorganized dresser and by the mischievous gleam lighting up Mellie's eyes, I just knew she wasn't done.

"Did the gift horse die in here too?" she asked with a sweetly feigned innocence and this time I burst into body-encompassing laughs, unable to hold it back any longer. I missed this version of Mellie so much.

Neal halted his hasty search and crossed his arms with eyebrows raised, but he was obviously biting back a grin. For a split second, he looked just like my father . . . but that was mere wish fulfillment on my part. "Kid, you want the clothes or not?"

"I don't think I want your manly clothes," she quipped back and he merely rolled his eyes at her.

"Relax, my fiancée lives here, too, and she wouldn't mind if I gave you a couple things."

Wait, hold up- fiancée? "You have a fiancée?" I asked, and he nodded almost absentmindedly.

"Yep . . . here, it might be a little big, but better than whatever you're wearing now." He handed her a silky blouse, amusement lighting up his warm features. "You can wear it as a dress."

She scrunched up her nose in distaste. "I don't wear dresses. Pirates don't wear dresses. I'd be a disgrace to all pirates everywhere."

He rolled his eyes at her. "Well, good thing for you, it's just a long shirt. You can handle it. I know you can. I trust you. Well, sort of. Well, a little bit. I'll get back to you on that one."

She pouted at him, but relented when he led her back to the bathroom to put it on along with a pair of remarkably tiny shorts- still large on Mellie. Neal then passed me a pair of knee-length shorts that would work as short pants for me, and an odd, plain-looking black shirt with the letters "ACDC" spread across them. "Here, you probably don't know what heavy rock is, so hopefully this won't bother you too much." Heavy rock? I knew what that was. I wasn't an idiot. A boulder. Somehow, I didn't think that was what he meant, though.

A few minutes later, we were dressed in the big clothes, both of us needing belts wrapped around our hips to keep the shorts up. We ended up back in his living room after a little while, and I realized that whatever he wanted to tell us before, he was going to use this an opportunity.

"Look, you were telling me about your mom, and . . . what's her name?" He squirmed in his seat uncomfortably, like he really did not want to be having this conversation. Well, neither did we.

"Milah," we said softly in unison, and recognition wrote itself across his features in big bold letters. "Why?" I continued hesitantly. "Did you . . . did you know her?"

"Black curly hair, blue eyes, a whole lot of fire in her?" We nodded strongly.

He looked to be struggling with the truth, but we weren't letting him off the hook so easily. "She was my . . . sister. My big sister. You two and me," he gestured between us, "we're family."

A/N: Did you like it? Love it? Hate it? Let us know! Why do you think Neal lied about his familial relationship with Milah? Will the twins find out the truth?