Hey darlings! I'm so sorry this is late, but it's longer to make up for it! Please review, and I'm sorry. I won't keep you waiting so long next time. Promise!

-Han

Anna would say she could walk on her own, but as they dragged her through the estate doors, she doubted it. Her knees felt unstable, weak, and her spine seemed to want to hunch itself, protect her from the rest of the world. Two guards held her by her arms, dragging her unceremoniously down the halls, leaving dark smudges of her boots against the marble. Her hands shook, but she didn't show it, eyes facing the ground like she could read the patterns in the beige tile.

She tried to convince herself she wasn't scared. She tried to fool herself into believing she was strong, that her back was straight and her dignity impenetrable. But she was falling, sinking into memories better left forgotten and she could remember her goodbyes at Port Royal, once her father found her, once he'd sent for her. And she kissed freedom goodbye like Jack had kissed her on the battlements, only the touch wasn't lingering, and it was slipping through her fingers far too fast and suddenly she was in London, and London was her prison. Bars of crowded streets suffocating her lust for open air and rolling seas, she was empty on the inside, her fire had died.

Blankness was settling into her mind, over taking any form of thought as she tried to quell the frightened child in her chest, clawing at her heart to find sanctuary. Jack had finally woken, and was watching the world around him with sad, desolate eyes as they dragged the pair down the halls. Anna could feel the comfort of pirate being torn off of her, leaving vicious claw marks on a wounded princess.

A set of doors opened to usher them inside and she felt her heart in her throat, fear gripping her like it could manipulate her movements and she was shaking. Something Jack had never seen and she didn't want to show it now. Her hands fisted as they shoved her into an ornate chair, their fingers bruising as they manacled her, irons fastening in a way silk scarves had in her past. When her father wanted perfect posture and her spine wouldn't comply. Her chin tilted in defiance as they walked out, a mask she could rely on falling into place. The doors closed and silence enveloped them.

Her eyes flicked to every corner, familiarity like a taste on her tongue, and she was tracing escape routes like she knew Jack was. He hadn't said anything yet, intent on a cream pastry on the table in front of them. Food was piled high on an ornate table, a large throne behind it, a gold chandelier hanging from the ceiling like a pendulum. She was sure Jack hadn't eaten in days, much like her. Suddenly, hunger over took her distress, a pressing force she knew so well and they'd been so far undercover they couldn't afford to stop for food.

As one they forced their chairs forward, dragging them across marble flooring in a harsh grating sound that filled their ears and threatened to shatter their minds. Anna glanced at Jack, friendly competition for the pastry rising in her eyes as she tried to drown out her misery. A coy smile rose to his feature and he strained to push his chair forward. She smirked, pushing herself another few inches, their arms stretching out as one to take their prize.

A creak from the hidden door to the right of them had them pausing violently, eyes blown wide as their minds spun to find explanation. Without thought, Jack kicked the bottom of the table, watching the pastry rolled from its plate with almost tantalizing slowness, flaky crust making Anna wet her lips. It plummeted towards the floor, and she reacted, kicking it up on reflex and watching it be impaled on a spire of the chandelier above them.

The doors opened and both pirates crossed their legs, as if nothing had happened. Anna forced her body to relax muscle by muscle, refusing to show weakness or fear. She allowed a casual smirk to rise to her features as the group of well dressed men entered, soldiers holding muskets high to protect their king.

King George the First walked sluggishly through the door, his own weight impairing any sense of grace as he tottered towards them and sat himself with a creak of his throne. If it was possible, he'd gotten bigger since she'd last saw him, white powder caked into deep lines on his face and the perpetually pinched look he wore, like he'd smelled something bad. Anna wanted to laugh, relief rolling off of her shoulders because at least it wasn't her father.

Only her grandfather.

She sent an almost reassuring glance to Jack, switching the roles as she felt herself sinking back into piracy and freedom and fearless drive. This man couldn't hurt her, not like her father could. Jack nodded subtly, a gleam in his eyes that spoke of pride. He hadn't said anything to her, knowing she could drag herself from the dark inside her own chest better than he ever could. There were some things she understood in a way Jack could never quiet accomplish. It was a foreign wall inside her body that he knew she could handle.

She was strong enough not to need his hand, and that meant more than any kind word he could have given her.

"You are Jack Sparrow?" the Carteret asked, a diplomat with his nose stuck permanently in the air. He gazed down at Jack in contempt, but it wasn't him who answered.

"Captain," Anna corrected with a patronizing smile. "I expect someone as obsessed with titles as you to remember that."

"Petulant child, you've no right," he hissed, a slip in his position, anger in his eyes. The king waved him off lazily, his eyes rapt on the brown eyed pirate.

"I have heard of you. And you know who I am," he said with a sloppy smirk, a croaking laugh wheezing from his throat. He was pointedly ignoring her, but it might have only been because he wanted something from Jack.

"Face is familiar; have I threatened you before?" he asked, reminding Anna of that first day in Port Royal, when he danced Death with her brother and she'd had to hit him with a bottle. A ghost of a smile rose to her lips at the thought, her chest still hollow from the loss of Will. She missed him more than she could ever communicate to Jack.

"You are in the presence of George Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, Arch treasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, King of Great Britain and Ireland ...and of you," the Carteret spouted off with rehearsed familiarity. Anna rolled her eyes and tried to cross her arms over her chest, finding the movement restricted by the manacles.

"Doesn't ring a bell," Jack responded quickly.

"And does it for your friend," the king asked, a contempt in the word like it was a condemnation. Anna tilted her head to the side, and squinted as if trying to decipher the many layers of age and fat and age and nodded slowly.

"One can only hope familial resemblance does not carry two generations," she said finally, a defiant smirk on her lips and she was sure the king had never seen her wear it before. "Maybe I look like my mother."

"Annabelle?" he stuttered, flabbergasted. She grinned, unable to restrain herself from this game of cat and mouse. Jack was glancing at her with a kind of pride she could feel reflected in her own heart. "I was told you'd been killed."

"Heavens no," she said with a smile. "I have simply elected to rid myself of the pressures and obligations of a crown I neither want nor need, in order to live a life I can be proud of."

Silence met her statement as the king attempted to make sense of her words, his lips moving soundlessly as he worked out her statement. "Piracy," he spat finally, a glare reaching his eyes.

"But what need of piracy do you have, may I ask?" Jack pushed in, hoping to forestall any rash action on the part of the king. The lasting they wanted was for him to call for the prince, to call for George the Second.

"I am informed that you have come to London to procure a crew for your ship," George said finally, shifting his beady eyes from Anna's.

"I am Jack Sparrow. But I am not here to procure a crew," Jack grunted, rolling his eyes and pulling on his manacles indignantly. Ann copied him, testing her movement within her bonds as she shifted.

"That…is…someone else," she took up for him, muttering over the sound of ringing iron and prayed Jack knew what he was doing. She didn't think she could handle a failure here, anywhere but here. Failure meant her father would know, and he would undoubtedly find her. That was a panic she couldn't mask, couldn't tuck away into a corner and forget about. This was a fast-rising, quick fire that would race through her body like it needed to find the center of things. In her heart it would fester, fear, panic, thundering in her chest until she was scrambling for protection. She couldn't afford that now, had to play the game the way Jack needed her to.

"Ah. Someone else named Jack Sparrow," the king said with a sneer, shifting his attention to the Carteret and Pelham. "You brought me the wrong wastrel. Find the proper one, and dispose of this imposter!"

"Hang on!" Anna shouted indignantly, as if offended. "I shall have you know that he is the one and only Captain Jack Sparrow, and he clearly is in London," she said slowly, as if he was stupid. Jack rattled his chains more, looking down at his dirt-caked hands as if concentrating, his brow furrowed and his wrists aching.

"To procure a crew?"

"What?" Jack asked, both pirates rattling their chains more and watching with barely hidden glee as the king flinched in response. This was working better than he expected, all he needed was to get George to say the right words and they would be free.

"To undertake a voyage to the Fountain-" he cut himself off, his head pounding with the reverberating sounds of manacles ringing across the ornate dining room, bouncing off the delicate china and the spires of the chandeliers. It was a noise the old king preferred never to hear, choosing to occupy himself with the lighter subjects of ruling, while his son carried on those affairs. But to George the First, the sound of ringing iron made his head hurt. "Can someone please remove these infernal chains?" he shouted, unable to retain a sense of decorum when the noise was marring his ear drums.

Both pirates sighed with relief, motions syncopated with practice, and they were good at this, and both of them knew it. Guards came behind them, fingers rough on their skin, and Anna didn't see the warning glance Jack gave to them when they touched her wrists too roughly.

"We know you're in possession of a map," the Pelham said snidely, cold eyes flicking between both pirates as they rubbed their wrists softly. Anna looked away from them, her eyes o the window to her right, the heavy ornate curtains. Her fingers massaged her right wrist and she wished Jack could do it for her, his rough fingers pressing into the vulnerable skin of her inner wrist. But pirates didn't show affection.

"So confiscate the map, and to the gallows with him!" the Carteret shouted, nearly stamping his foot in resentment. Anna wondered if all men in politics had the emotional span of a teaspoon, too quick to bubble over and they would do something rash.

"Have you a map?" George asked tiredly, a hand over his eyes like he was shielding himself from the stupidity around him. Jack stood up, eyeing the table of food in front of him with an animalistic lust. He hadn't eaten in at least three days. The ship they'd bartered their way onto hadn't had enough provisions for two extra hands, and Anna refused to steal from those who helped them. And now there was opportunity, he was only waiting for the right moment to seize it.

He glanced back at Anna as the king's words reached his mind. She was leaning back in her chair like it was her own thrown, arms casually laid out and a leg slung over the left arm almost provocatively. He swallowed. She nodded, tipping her head towards his vest and he could read her eyes so well. She'd given the map to Gibbs, like they'd talked about, and ordered him to destroy it. He wondered why he doubted her.

"No," he said brightly to the king, a grin on his lips as he moved forward, staring admiringly at the plethora of sustenance in front of him. If he could just have one bite, maybe he could think straight about the situation they were in. Maybe he could focus on the subtle hints Anna was giving him, the small twitches she was adopting.

But his hunger was getting in the way of his understanding. Because she was scared, something he hadn't seen since Will was dying, since her younger brother lay broken in her and Elizabeth's arms. She was trying to hide it, burying it under her own hunger, her mask of piracy and freedom, but he could see through her.

He always could, even when she didn't want him to. Even when she lay next to him in his cabin, her eyes on the ceiling tracing patterns in the woodwork, and he knew she was trying to be nonchalant. But he knew what she was thinking, always seemed to, and he reached across the distance and slung an arm across her body and pulled her against him, like he could protect her. She'd tried to smile, the edges of her lips quivering, as he pressed a kiss to her temple and whispered that Will wouldn't want her to be so sad. She'd sighed and asked him how he always managed to know. He'd grinned, refusing to answer, and traced his fingers across her arm in the moonlight.

But not now. Now he hadn't eaten for days and he his mind was split down the middle trying to quell the gnawing hunger clawing at his body and trying to think his way out. Everything was pulling at his body and at the center was Annie, willing to stand by him, ready for the ends of the earth and the possibility of seeing her own Hell incarnate. Her father. Sometimes he wondered how she was able to do it. How she could sacrifice so much to stand there, back straight with that dazzling smile that reminded him of the sun on the water, eyes like the sea after a storm, voice like the call of the ocean, body unique to her and she was his North Star, his way home.

Sometimes he forgot that, but never for long. Because when he needed her, she was there. Faithfully.

"Where is it?" the Carteret asked, pulling him back to the present and reminding him of the task at hand: eating and not dying. In that order.

Jack flicked his gaze to Anna as she toyed with a bracelet around her wrist, watching the way it caught the light and trying to keep her breathing even and relaxed. He knew she was worrying about her father, something Jack could never quiet comprehend. It was a walled piece of her heart he'd never been allowed inside of. And when she tensed at the sight of silk scarves and corsets, he didn't question her. He didn't push her.

"Truth?" Jack asked, as if they would want anything less. "I lost it…quiet recently in fact," he said brightly, sure Gibbs would be studying at that moment.

"I have a report. The Spanish have located the Fountain of Youth," George muttered as Jack stepped forward, no longer having any regard for the people around him as he prepared to dip his finger into a particularly delicious cream tart. He wasn't really listening to the king, but distantly confirmed what he'd already thought; this was about the Fountain. It didn't seem to matter that he and Anna had lost their lust for it, and had promised themselves to never go after it. They hadn't even had to verbalize that, they simply knew. "I will not-" he banged his fist on the table, rattling everything on it and causing Jack to draw back instinctively. "Have some melancholy-" another bang on the table as Jack drew back again. "Spanish monarch," George shouted louder, his voice booming off the walls as he slammed his fist into the table again, and Jack couldn't stop the pout that fell to his face as he drew back again. "A Catholic!" he added with another bang on the table. "Gain-Eternal-Life!" he boomed, accentuating each word with a violent bang on the table.

Finally, Dear lord, finally, Jack tipped his finger into the cream and stole the cherry, popping it into his mouth with something close to animalistic glee. He heard the rough and tumbled chuckle of Anna behind him and grinned to himself, loving the way her laugh sounded so free, throaty like she'd been screaming too long over the wind at the crew.

"You do know the way to the Fountain?" the Pelham asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Course we do!" Jack answered, sure to include Annie with a grin over his shoulder. She smirked, opening her arms in a welcoming gesture.

"Look at us," she finished for him, indicating their relaxed posture and youthful faces. She was good at playing people, Jack realized, something like pride in his eyes. He'd taught her, raised the pirate inside her chest from a dusty corner and brought it to the surface. He knew he had. "Would you expect anything less than perfect navigational skills?" she questioned, coy smile on her lips like she as waiting for the bait to take.

"You could guide an expedition?" the Carteret asked, finally looking at Anna, as if she hadn't been worth his attention before. She nodded to Jack, as if indicating it was his turn to speak.

"With your permission, your heinie, you will be providing, then, a ship?" Jack asked, while positioning a chair to his liking, casting a glance at Anna as he did so. She stood as he spoke, catching on quickly as she moved lethargically to stand beside him. She fiddled with a handkerchief, throwing it behind her as if she was bored.

"And a crew?" Anna finished, her head tilting in question. The Carteret glared at her but managed to eradicate it in an instant, his face clearing and a petulant smile rising to his powdered lips.

"And…a captain," he said with a flourish of his arm as the doors opened again, a wig wearing man entering the room on a stiff peg leg, his gait thundering and slow, but somehow, not ungraceful. Jack bent his body in half behind Anna, unwilling to see the man behind the wig and trying to make Anna smile all in one action. He could feel her tense shoulders, her unwillingness to believe that any of the other men accompanying the stranger could be the man she feared most, the dark enigma, the force of evil that was the Prince of England.

The mystery man bowed lowly, his movements stiff and almost unwilling, as if his spine did not want to comply with the demands of society. Anna knew the feeling. When his head rose her heart stopped, seizing in her chest and suddenly she wondered if this was where the road ended, if this was where freedom lead her. If this was where the lust for the horizon led to, if this is what was beyond the veil of freedom.

Barbossa lifted his powder-caked face, the bleached color falling into the crevices into her face like it was trying to break them apart and split his soul open to be shown to the bureaucrats and the king. His eyes looked empty to Anna, like the life had been sucked out of them the minute he'd handed over his soul to the chains of occupation. When he spoke, his voice was restrained, like he'd been practicing his propriety. Unlike the pirate he used to be, unlike the free man he used to embody.

"Afternoon, sire."