keiraliz: Yeah and Izzy's just like "Crap! He's gone psycho again!"

callieandjack: Very messed up!

ValueMyHeart: Thank you!

Fairy Skull: I'm glad you liked it!

SaveroftheSun: I hope you didn't get concussion from that frying pan!

bmdrose: Glad you loved it! :D

klutzygall2: She should have gone to Specksavers!

Nelle07: Bad, but that's why we love him!

Valor: Gl-l-l-lad you ll-l-l-l-love it! Can you see J-J-J-J-J-Jack?

I had never felt so lost in a place I knew well. Somehow I found myself in the crew's cabin. I sat down on a bunk. Something about what I had just witnessed didn't seem right. It was wrong, all of it.

Will.

That's what was wrong. Will. What about him? There was no way that Elizabeth would choose Jack over Will. She wouldn't throw away the relationship that they had worked so hard to make happen. They were meant to be together, I knew it.

So that just left Jack's heart to be broken. This was something I never wanted to see happen. Not to him. I had already seen it happen to James and I didn't want to see Jack go through that too.

But there was something else that was bothering me about all this. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Something deep down inside me was hurting and I didn't know why. Shock. That must be it. The shock of the whole thing had got to me. I didn't know how to take it in and I didn't know how to process it. I just couldn't get used to the idea. It was such a weird one. Not matter how long I sat there I couldn't seem to get my head round the idea.

A loud rustling distracted me for a moment. Then I heard a scratching nose from the shadows. What was it? I leaned forward, trying to find the courage to go and see what was in that dark corner. A darker shape moved there. Then it barked and I relaxed. It was just the dog.

"I'd forgotten you were here," I muttered to him. He barked again and came padding into the light with an apple in his mouth. An apple? I didn't know dogs liked apples. He rested his head on my lap and looked at my with his big, brown eyes. "What?" I asked him. "What do you want?"

A shrill whistle cut through the silence. Ragetti came running in. He saw the dog and smiled, "There you are." Then he saw me. The smile faltered slightly, "We were playing fetch, only we didn't have no ball or nothing."

"Hence the apple," I said.

"Aye," Ragetti nodded. "Didn't think no-one would noticed. Nobody eats the apples since Barossa aint here no more."

"You're right, they probably won't."

Ragetti and the dog ran off. I was once again on my own, but as usual in this place it wasn't for long. Jack ran in and stopped when he saw me. I got a horrible sick, achy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I was coming down with something. I knew he knew I knew, if that makes sense and I didn't know how to act like everything was normal anymore.

"Isabel," he said. "Erm… Elizabeth and I were just…"

He trailed off. Even he couldn't think of a ridiculously bad excuse for it.

"It's alright, Jack, you don't have to explain it," I told him. He frowned.

"Do I not?"

"No," I said. "I understand."

A look of relief passed across his face and he gave a happy little sigh. "Good, I was worried you wouldn't."

I stood up. I would have to tell him the truth about Elizabeth. It would hurt him, but it had to be done. "Jack," I began softly, not quite sure how to put it.

"Yes, love?" He was still looking decidedly cheerful.

"I don't want to be the one who has to tell you this, but I don't think Elizabeth feels the same," I said. He was frowning again. This was something I really didn't want to do. "I know that you love her, but so does Will and… well, she loves him back. They're engaged, Jack and there's nothing you can do to change that."

Jack stared at me, his mouth slightly open. "What?" he managed to say.

"I'm sorry," I said, though I didn't know why I was apologizing, it was Elizabeth who was hurting him, not me.

"Captain," Marty walked in, stopping Jack from saying whatever it was he was about to say. "We're here."

"Good," Jack said a little more harshly than was necessary. He turned back to me, "We're not finished this conversation, love."

I nodded, though I didn't know what else there was left to say.

***

It might have been more sensible to have had more than one longboat full of crew, but we weren't expecting any trouble, so the thought never really occurred to us. As it happened it was just Jack, James, Pintel, Ragetti, Elizabeth and I who went ashore. Ragetti had felt it necessary to bring the dog along too. I didn't say anything to Elizabeth. I thought that neither she nor Jack would want the entire crew to know.

"You're pulling to fast!" Pintel complained to Ragetti. They were the ones rowing us to shore.

"You're pulling too slow!" replied Ragetti. "We don't want the Kracken to catch us."

I saw Jack give an involuntary shudder at the mention of the Kracken. He pulled his jar of dirt closer towards him.

"I'm saving me strength for when it comes," said Pintel. He paused, "Don't think it's pronounced Kracken anyway. I always heard it Krayken."

"What, with a long 'a'? Krocken is how it is in the original Scandinavian and Kraken's closer to that," Ragetti disagreed.

I glanced at Jack again. He was clutching the jar so tightly his knuckles were white. "Stop it!" I told them fiercely. "Shut up the pair of you!"

They stared at me, slightly taken a back, but their mouths remained closed. There was no further mention of the Kraken or Krayken, whichever way you chose to pronounce it. There was just silence until we reached the shore.

"The Isla de Cruces," Jack announced, hopping out of the boat. He threw orders to Pintel and Ragetti without even looking at them, "Mind the boat, watch the tide and don't touch my dirt."

He strode away with a shovel without bothering to wait for the rest of us to catch up. James glowered after him. "Why does he have that jar of dirt?" he asked.

"Someone gave it to him, to keep him safe from Davy Jones… or at least to make him feel like he's safe," I replied.

James sniggered, "What's he going to do? Throw dirt in Jones's eye?"

He laughed at his own comment for a while. I ignored it. James hated Jack and there wasn't much I could do about it. We followed Jack, but he was always about ten paces a head of us. We left a long trail of foot prints in the golden sand right across the island until we were almost on the other side. Jack stood on a small sand dune and waited for us to catch up. Elizabeth was staring at the compass. She started to slow down. She walked around for a bit and glanced up a few times before she sat down and scowled.

"It doesn't work. The compass, it doesn't work," she grumbled. "And it certainly doesn't show you what you want most."

Jack walked over to her and looked at the compass she'd left lying open on the sand. "Yes it does. You're sitting on it," he told her.

"What?" Elizabeth looked up.

"Move," Jack waved his hands at her to shoo her away. She stood up. Jack handed the shovel to James. James gave Jack a look of pure hatred before he began to dig. We sat down in the sweltering heat and waited.

What little breeze there was did nothing to cool us down. I lay back and closed my eyes against the glare of the sun. I heard the sound of the sand being moved and someone breathing nearby. Then there was a dull thud and I sat bolt upright.

We'd found something.