Mary rushed back to the Pearl before anyone could see her, clasping her hands together. True, he wasn't King, but James Norrington was a pirate lord without a scrap of loyalty to any of the others, except maybe to Elizabeth, but that didn't matter. He held a strong mind, that one, but it would not take much to persuade him to free Calypso on his own. Yes. She could feel real skin wrapping around her soul, real hair in place of this shapeless corona flagging around her. Three years. Ha! T'was more like days now.

"My sweet! You come for me," she heard from below decks. He couldn't possibly be down there already. Crouching down, she flew down the stairs and positioned herself in one of the barrels near the brig, concealing her glow.

"You were expecting me." Her mouth dropped open at the sound of Davy Jones. Davy Jones here on the Pearl! She'd promised she would take care of this ship and her crew. Promised! And yet here he was.

"It has been torture, trapped in this single form, cut off from the sea, from all that I love, from you."

"Ten years I devoted to the duty you charged me," he said, ten years of rehearsing this moment more than evident to Mary. "Ten years I looked after those who died at sea, and finally, when we could be together again, you weren't there." There was a pause, a choked quality about his voice, the sound of fighting back tears. "Why weren't you there?"

"It's my nature," Calypso said after a long pause. "Would you love me if I was anything but what I am?"

Cruel woman, Mary shook her head. She'd heard the story a million times, but this time, it clamped over her heart and squeezed it. She could almost feel hers breaking by proxy.

"I do not love you."

"Many things you were, Davy Jones, but never cruel. You have corrupted your purpose, and so yourself, and hid away what always should have been mine!"

"Calypso!"

It was something out of the stories Annie and Calico would tell at nights under the stars, a hornpipe or two in the background, lovers reuniting after such incredible odds. 'Journeys end in lovers' meeting,' she'd always heard. Love. If nothing else, it inspired faithfulness. Would Calypso even allow herself to be freed, knowing what all that entailed if she still loved Jones? But Calypso was fickle, faithless. To break her vows or oaths or promises once was to break them always, wasn't it?

"I will be free," Calypso said, "and when I am, I will give you my heart, and we will be together always…if only you had a heart to give. Why did you come?"

"And what fate have you planned for your captors?" he asked, ignoring her question.

"The brethren court?" she snarled. "The last thing they will learn in this life is how cruel I can be!"

Mary bit her lip, willing her tears to dry. She could not be freed, not now. She'd kill them all. She listened to the tragic Davy Jones once again promise his heart to her. Risking it, she lifted the lid of the barrel an inch. Gone. Gone like her plans. Gone like Will would be if Calypso neared any of them. She had to go back and warn them.

The broth trickled down Jack's throat, warming everywhere it touched, the modest wooden kitchen not where he expected Teague to spend any of his time, especially standing over a cauldron. He supposed it was Teague's way of giving him a semblance of home, primarily after showing him his latest acquisition.

"For twenty years you've been harping on me about not bringing ye back Mum's body and that's what you did with it?" He had gaped, unable to take his eyes off his mother's head, shrunken and wrinkled so he could hardly see anything of the fiery Italian eyes or the fierce long hair that would linger over his bedside to tuck him in at night. He took another gulp of soup. There were other matters to see to, he reminded himself.

"Your mum would have wanted to go into battle with ye," Teague said, sitting next to him with a stein of ale, pushing an identical one towards him. "Still a might stunned you chose such a course. What do ye make of all these new lords?"

"Who, James Norrington and Elizabeth Swann?" He laughed. "Ruthless, the pair of them."

"Ye know he's a pirate hunter, don't ye?"

"I do, escaped his clutches on more than one occasion. We most assuredly need soup and ale in front of us whenever we should meet. It would give me the patience to bring ye up to speed."

"Oh. Your hanging. I heard about that. Bollocks, I said, to the whole pretense about ye taking hold of two parrots and havin' 'em fly ye to your ship. My Jackie had something better than that plotted out, always had, daft as your old man and as stubborn as your mum. Well? Ye gonna tell me how ye dodged a hanging only to be newly rescued from the Locker of all places? Or should I just wait until after this war?"

"No, no, you don't have to wait until after the war," Jack muttered. "I'll tell ye."

"Will? Will!" So many rooms, Mary sighed, opening one and slamming it and then gliding down to the next one and repeating the pattern.

"Mary? Come in here before someone sees you." Will ushered her into the room, a modest ivory bed and tiger-skin rug the only contents, besides a large black chest at the foot of the bed, opened and containing only Will's boots. "What's happened?"

"Will, I'm so sorry! We must find another way."

"Another way?"

"Davy Jones came to see Calypso!" she wailed, her diamond tears streaming down her colorless cheeks. "She means to show the brethren court her wrath. We cannot free her in the state she's in. Oh, I know they didn't vote to do so, but we both know pirates are a might used to doin' what they want to do, don't we?"

"Mum would have said yes," Jack said, gripping the back of his chair, his elbows jutted out in front of him.

"You're a might old to be usin' that tactic."

"Still, my argument remains the same. Why, it was just the last time we were together ye gave me a nice father-son talk about the subject. I remember it well, one of us on either side of prison bars…ye reaching out to choke me…"

"A year, ye said, you've known her?"

"Teague…"

Teague coughed.

"Fine. Father, I'm not asking permission here, so why are we discussing it as such? I'm asking you to perform it, and there are a plethora of other captains here, probably more gathered here, that she is King of, I might add, than anywhere else in the world. We can take our pick. But I asked you to do it, now please either go with me to conduct said ceremony, sit down, or at least turn to the side so I don't have to see me mum's head bobbing about on your hip."

For a moment, Captain John Teague's eyes glimmered, his shoulders relaxing. Lifting his hand, he ran it over the top of Jack's head.

"Go ask her father, boy."

"It's all right. Don't cry," Will said, lifting up the corner of the blanket on the bed to wipe her cheek. Her tears left a sparkling stain on it, like a trail of stardust. "You know, I'm sure everyone here has been in more than a few dangerous scrapes. You forget Elizabeth, Jack, and I had to fight a horde of pirates who couldn't be killed, couldn't even feel pain, and at the same time make sure my blood fell into just the right treasure chest. I can only imagine what the other pirate lords have gone through. You, look at you! You're the great pirate Mary Read. How many times did some great peril befall you before you were caught?"

"All good things must come to an end, Will," she whispered. "Not as strong as I once was, ye know."

"Even so."

It didn't escape him that if Calypso were to be freed by anyone now that it would free Mary and yet she still mourned the very idea of it.

"You know," he continued. "For a pirate, you're very selfless."

"I could say the same about you," she said, curling up to him and laying her head on his shoulder.

"Stay here," he said, constringing his whole body. It was too fast, all of it. "I'll alert the King about what you said. I'll be back soon."

Closing the door behind him, he passed a dozen men lugging crates down the corridor, all preparing for war. Weapons, rope—anything could be in such hulking boxes that took two men at a time to carry. Their muscles shook at the strain. At least they weren't spending their time devising ways to remove Elizabeth from power, he shrugged. The lamps on the wall between every room had been lit, providing an amber hue and firm dark shadows.

"Jack!"

The pirate stopped in midstep, his mouth stretched down in annoyance. Will had learned over time to ignore it.

"The time has come to move Calypso out of the Pearl."

"Well, that is serious enough to warrant some time," Jack heaved, his arms hidden in the pockets of his coat. "Is this all on a whim, or has there been some development?"

"Davy Jones has been to see her. She means to do the brethren court harm." He kept following Jack down the corridor built into the caverns of the Cove. It would lead them out to the docks if no frenzied passersby ran into them.

"Then I was right to dissuade the court from freeing her. I'll accept your gratitude for so well thought-out a strategy later."

"Where were you going in such a hurry?" Will trotted a few paces to match his stride.

"I'm not in any hurry."

Outside, afternoon darkened almost to dusk, every ship filled with its crew adding more fire to its guns. A few men sat with their legs dangling off of the pier polishing their pistols and whistling. Only the Pearl rested empty, save for Gibbs ordering Pintel and Ragetti to catch up to Cotton and Marty in mending one of the sails.

"Anyone could just go down into the brig and free her without any of us noticing," Will said.

"Aye, but so long as I still have something on my person, said freeing cannot be done," Jack said with a grin. "At any rate, where do you proffer we stow her, eh? William, this is a being that brought a man back from the dead and knew all the intricacies of how to salvage another man back from the dead. Therefore it can be assumed she is only in there biding her time."

"At the very least someone should guard her!"

"Aye, that, sir, is a stroke of genius. Mr. Gibbs!" He stood on the planks that would lead up to the upper deck.

"Jack! She's lookin' sharp, she is! Hungry for a fight."

"Do you speak of my ship or the pestilential wench in her?"

"Oh, er, the ship. We been leavin' the pestilential wench alone."

"Ah. Well, I brought a foreman to keep an eye on the…" he trailed off, glancing over at Pintel and Ragetti. "…those who require a watchful eye." Before Will could argue, Jack took his shoulders and prodded him up the planks to the main deck at the same time Gibbs ran down it. "You were right all along, Will, that the goddess needs someone to guard her at the very least and we all know you are far from the very least."

"Jack!"

"Mr. Gibbs has other business to attend to," he called, their backs to him. "I bid thee good night!"

"I hate him," Will growled before turning towards the four pairs of eyes staring at him. "Well, what are you all staring at? Back to work."

Elizabeth saw to the Empress first, a few of the other men warming up to her and showing her around the massive vessel so she knew every inch of it. Her firepower alone had the potential to decimate the Endeavor should the two come close enough together. Loaded, she left Heng to guard the ship for the night, only one more matter of business before she could find Jack, a million ways of thanking him for his wedding present to her entering her mind.

The sight of James, her one more matter of business, wiped the smile off her face. Just outside the room he had chosen for the night, she considered her timing perfect.

"James."

He stood stoic, not bothering to come and offer her his arm as he always had in Port Royal, but they were a long way from that.

"Evening, your Highness."

"James, what are you doing? You don't even have your own ship. You snuck off to go back to Beckett and you're suddenly back as a pirate lord? He's outside waiting, isn't he?"

"Elizabeth, yes, he does think I'll be leading all of you out to him in an ambush. But the court elected to fight. As long as he still believed pirates would betray other pirates, he would heavily underestimate them. It's his weakness, Elizabeth, his confidence in himself."

"You really are thinking like a pirate, aren't you?" she breathed, not sure to be relieved or appalled at this new ability.

"It's the best way to guarantee your safety."

Biting her lip, Elizabeth shook her head at the floor, the lids of her eyes at half-mast. She looked back up to meet his burdened eyes.

"Don't do this for me," she said, her eyebrows lifted for emphasis, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from saying more, that it was beyond stupid to still want to marry her after all this time, that he had given no indication of anything when they reunited in Tortuga except an insistence that he go with her to find Jack, but she had pawned that off as desperation, lack of alternatives. It took every fiber of her being to refrain from slapping any remaining feelings he had for her out of his mind.

"So here's where you've been hiding, love," she heard Jack approach with Gibbs beside him, both of them eyeing James. "And how do you fair tonight, Com…Ad…Captain Norrington, pirate lord?"

"I was well up until now," James said with gritted teeth.

"It's still a step up from rum-pot deckhand, though, ain't it?" Jack taunted. "Of course, who among us has not risen from such lowly stations? I myself had been a powder monkey, just a lad, on the Diana it was, 'tho I have to say all the names somewhat ran together after the Pearl found me. When you have a ship of your own again, you'll understand." He gave his shoulder a slap. "And now here we are, thirty-six, pirate lords, and about to embark on a much long-awaited event, ain't that right, Lizzie?"

"Much long-awaited," she agreed, rolling her tongue around again to keep from laughing.

"I despise it when you call her that," James said.

"Then you won't much like me calling her a fellow Sparrow then, mate."

"That's tellin' him, Jack! Wait, what?" Gibbs asked.

The color evaporated from his face, she noticed, his eyes lowering towards hers, narrowed.

"May I speak to you alone?"

"James, promise me you won't try to free Calypso on your own," she pleaded, knowing the bitterness he felt barred her words from him. Lowering her voice she added, "I know it seems sudden…"

"Yes, yes, it does. Goodnight, Miss Swann." He slammed his door behind them. A thunderbolt could not have jolted her as much. She threw her back against the wall, her brow knitted. She'd already considered their friendship lost when they'd called off their engagement, and yet it somehow managed to be lost again. Goodness, she'd made a habit of doing that, she snorted at herself. At the sensation of Jack's hand on hers, she nestled into him.

"It doesn't have to be tonight," he whispered.

"What are you talking about?"

"Noblesse oblige, love." He played with her tendrils of hair too short to be in her bun with a sad smile. "It can wait. A King going into battle can't have too many thoughts weighing on her mind."

"Jack." She clasped the back of his head. "'Loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named not good.'"

"Don't do that to me, not while I'm trying to be a good man for ye," he said, an amorous glint in his eyes. He kissed her forehead and the corner of her eye before settling upon her lips, bestowing them with a bout of short kisses, each one lingering more and more until she closed the gap between them and deepened the embrace.

"I'll, er, just be leavin' the two of ye alone." Gibbs shrugged, casting his eyes downward.

"No, no, I'm done," Jack sighed, still looking at her, cherishing her, loving her with such an intensity Elizabeth had to protest.

"Marry me tonight, Jack. As your King…"

"If you want another witness to it…" Her father approached them with Teague next to him. The image alone resorted both her and Jack to a series of eye blinks. "Here I stand." He bent down and kissed her cheek, a single tear drizzling down his own.

"I knew I'd warm up to you," Jack said with a deadpan delivery.

A/N: "Journeys end in lovers' meeting" is a quote from Twelfth Night (also used in a fun way in the 1963 movie The Haunting, but I digress), but Mary doesn't know that's where it comes from. Noblesse oblige is a fancy way of saying "with great power comes great responsibility." "Loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named not good," is from John Milton's Paradise Lost. This was one of the hardest chapters to name because I couldn't be sure what the overlying theme of it was.