Stronger Than Glass

Sequel to Cold as Glass

End of the Glass Trilogy

A Captain's Adventure

Chapter 20

The sun rose bright and early. Things would have been beautifully if…there was drinkable water. It went on like this through the day. No water. No food. We were all miserably hanging off of things like sloths. And the sun was starting to head back down towards the horizon. It was getting close to sunset now…

"No water," Pintel grumbled, as he held an empty sack in front of his mouth. "Why is all but the rum gone?"

Gibbs then spoke in a bleak tone, as he held an empty glass bottle to his eyes," Rum's gone too."

Sourly, I took off my jacket and vest, leaving my torso exposed to the harsh sun light and heat. I was sure my tunic and corset were starting to retain my sweat. And I was going to become desperate enough, fairly soon, to start walking around in either just my tunic or my beige corset.

I tiredly leaned against the wooden railing starring out at the sun upon the horizon. My hands still managed to weakly grasp my belongings, despite the fact my eyes were dropping and body shaking weakly from dehydration.

Will followed my lead, but seemed livelier than I. But Tia Dalma trailed behind him, in a stalker's manner. It was as if she was trying to find a perfect moment to tell him something. Or if she was watching him ever so closely to make sure he did not do something. Maybe she saw and overheard Will make that deal with Sao Feng…

"If we cannot escape these doldrums before night," she dramatically paused," I fear we will sail on trackless seas."

"Oh, just peachy!" I groaned and muttered to myself, no longer using the filter between my thoughts and my voice.

But Tia Dalma continued, as Will glanced over at her," Doomed to roam the reach between worlds. Forever."

Yet just as I suspected, Tia Dalma's voice had caught the attention of others. For now my husband and Gibbs approached the three of us at the railing.

Gibbs struggled to stand up, and gripped the worn railing tightly," With no water, forever looks to be arriving a mite too soon."

The five of us glanced about for a moment, before my husband, urged me away from the railing, and Will stomped away from the railing to stand in the middle of the deck and look up towards my father, who proudly stood looking at the horizon. Yet distantly I could make out Jack looking helplessly at MY map.

I had told him to watch the map for me this very morning, I knew with my lack of food and water that my mind would stray and I wouldn't be coherent enough to keep track of it.

I let my eyes drift after Will, while my body clung to my husband's. "Come, Beaux," My husband spoke carefully," let's lay you down somewhere, below deck."

But I didn't respond, for some reason, I found my thought consumed by Will. I knew my husband saw my eyes starring in the direction of Will, but what he thought of it I would not know. After all I was still starring off at Will.

"Why doesn't he do something?"

But our dull silence was broken by Ragetti chasing after Jack the Monkey," Me eye!" The monkey ran past Sirius and I first, then Ragetti was right behind him," Give it back!"

But Gibbs spoke up, joining Will's side, after taking a moment to let the commotion pass the two of them," There's no sense to this."

We all stood in silence for a moment, as my husband silently urged my body along with his.

I glanced away from Will towards the sky- The sky!

But Will continued, as my thoughts raced with thoughts about the sky (which was the key to getting us here)," The green flash happens at sunset, not sunrise."

"'Over the edge,'" Sirius stubbornly muttered to himself, as he adjusted his grasp upon me," This stupid rescue, it's driving me over the blooming edge."

Gibbs added along to my husband's complaints that he overheard," Sunrises don't set!"

With that my husband picked up my stubborn form, and carried me over to his father's spot. And with an ungraceful manner, I was placed down upon the same stoop that Jack sat upon and my affects were placed upon my lap.

Jack absently twisted about the pieces as Will and I had before. He seemed to be at a complete loss and the sobriety from the lack of rum was starting to mellow his personality…oddly enough. I would have thought that it would be the opposite, that he would become crazier without his ability to nurse upon the rum.

Suddenly as Jack spun the map pieces around I noticed something else come together. I reached out and smacked Jack's hand away from the map pieces and twisted it to the spots where I swore I saw something, in my delirium.

Then…I saw it!

"Up is down," Jack read aloud. "Well that's just maddeningly unhelpful." He then shot me a crabby glare," Why are these things never clear?"

"Maybe it does mean something," I sourly spat back, trying to be optimistic compared to his pessimistic thoughts.

I then twisted the map away from Jack, and ignored him, deliberately twisting my back towards him, as I heard him beginning to mumble things to himself.

"Look at this, Sirius," I motioned for him to spy upon the writing Jack and I had stumbled upon.

"What? Eh?" Jack spoke to himself in a maddening tone.

Sirius shot his father a glance, before he knelt down to my side and observed the words.

"Come again?" Jack spoke, quietly. His speaking to himself, was really starting to get to me. "That's even more than less than unhelpful."

Sirius sighed, rubbing his temple for a moment, and then glanced at me," Up is down?"

"I love the sea!" Jack spouted, making Sirius and me turn to look at him. He was just blankly starring forward with a childish look in his eyes.

I rolled my eyes at Jack, before I motioned to my husband to look again. "I wonder what it could possibly mean."

Jack then muttered," I prefer rum. Rum's good."

"It could mean anything," Sirius spoke sourly, still rubbing his temple. "It could mean think with your arse instead of your head. Or it could mean another thing like referring to inside out."

"Once every ten years." Jack spoke, as if someone had misheard something and he was trying to fill them in. "Even longer given the deficit of rum."

I groaned in frustration of the outbursts Jack was letting out, and quickly, yet quietly, spoke to my husband," I don't recall your father ever talking to himself before."

"Oh, I like that!" Jack wildly spoke in thought.

Sirius shook h is head in frustration," Maybe the lack of rum is getting to him. You did just hear him say he likes rum."

But then just as oddly as he had begun ranting, Jack spoke as if he had a coherent thought," Not sunset!"

Jack reached over and snatched the map from my husband me, where we both watched him spin the center of it, upside down.

"Sundown." It effortlessly rolled off my tongue. Something was beginning to make sense, but I couldn't say what it was just yet. But obviously as Jack and I sat together our two drained brains were making something happen.

Jack finished for me, with wide eyes," And rise. Up." He then snapped up and shot a glance around the whole boat for a moment, before pointing to the opposite side of the ship, and shouted," What's that?"

Quickly Sirius helped me up, and questioned," What in all of God's green goodness just happened there?"

"I'm not quiet sure…"I drawled, as I slid on my vest.

"What is that?" Jack shouted again, causing some of the crew men to follow after him.

"What?" "Where?" "There!"

I slid on my jacket too, then pulled on my hat, and spoke to my concerned husband," All I know is, that Jack is up to something, and that something may just be the way to get us out of here before sunset."

"There!" Jack snapped, as if it was obvious. But from where I stood with my husband, I saw nothing.

But the longer Jack stood there the more people came rushing over. Even my father got away from his spot at the wheel.

Yet to my amazement, Jack nonchalantly looked the opposite direction and shouted," There!" And he ran across the deck to the opposite side.

My father, Sirius, and I stood there eyeballing Jack oddly. As more people ran after Jack, creating a small posse of people.

Then he ran across again. And this time even more people followed. He did it again. And again. And again. Even Elizabeth joined in on their foolish running about.

Yet I felt my husband shiver against me though, making me look back at him to see what was bothering him so. And it was my father pulling Ragetti's wooden eyeball free from his mouth, and pushing it back into Ragetti's eye socket.

Pintel found my side, and bitterly commented, as my father began to pick up the map," He's rocking the ship. Very unsafe that is."

"We're rocking the skip?" Gibbs shouted back at me, wondering if it was really safe to be doing this.

Than, as if I had just been smacked a rogue ocean wave, I knew what was going on. We had to flip the Pearl over before sunset happened.

"Sirius!" I grabbed his hand and forced him to run with me, as we followed Jack's seemingly stupid and pointless running.

The Pearl creaked beneath our mass of feet and bodies running from side to side. So…again, again, again, and again we ran back and forth. The results of flipping this boat over seemed out of our power as human beings.

But then my father spoke, lending leadership to this mass of drones," Time it with the swell. Loose the cannons, you lazy bilge rats! Unstow the cargo! Let it shift!"

At one point, within my running about, I came across Pintel and Ragetti both hanging upside down from the mast. I had to pause to look at the two of them, and giggle as their faces became red and blue.

But my husband yanked me back into reality, and forced me to keep running back and forth.

That was when, upon hitting the railing, I actually felt the ship tip even more unnatural than usual. I braced myself against the railing, and used my foot to anchor me from falling backwards. We were really going to do this. We were really going to flip the Pearl over.