Hey guys! Thank you so much for the response last chapter, keep it up? Your reviews are honestly the only reason I keep writing. Otherwise I would've gotten bored and quit by now. Anyway, Thanks you guys, really. This is shorter than most, but I'm pretty happy with it. Bear with me, and the next will be longer. Enjoy!

-Han

Anna crept down the stairs with the air of a woman who knew the plot was about to thicken, the tides were about to change. Her fingertips pressed against the rough wood of the banister, sunlight wafted through the hatch and illuminating dusty hammocks and boxes of food in the corners. Jack was just behind her, his steps only whispers against the lull of the sea against the ship. He grabbed a hook from a wall mount with slippery fingers, grasping it as if the hook could substitute for his hand, calluses and rings and all.

She slipped behind a support beam, taking a moment to breathe and remember the intention: get off the ship. The Queen Ann's Revenge was infamous, dangerous, and bloody. Neither pirate wanted to stay there, be imprisoned for the whims of another. Freedom was in their veins and they weren't going to give it up now.

"Love?" Jack asked, pressing his body against hers in an attempt to make themselves smaller, undetectable to the uncaring eyes of crewmen. She grinned, looking up at him and feeling the warm lines of his body against her. "With me?"

"Always," she whispered conspiringly, as if everything were a game. Life was easier that way, and she was tired of being sad. Tired of being so serious. "That Angelica of yours certainly knows what she's doin'."

"She is merely an inadequate copy of myself in female form," Jack countered with a shake of his head. "Lord only knows how she managed to shanghai the two of us." Anna leaned forward slightly, as if to impart a desperately important piece of information.

"I believe it was poisonous darts, Birdie," She said slowly, as if waiting for him to catch up. He rolled his eyes with a small smile, reaching up with his free hand to ruffle her hair.

"Darling, life is never boring with you," he whispered almost affectionately. She shrugged, her fingers slipping to her sword at the sound of footsteps overhead. She nodded to him, her blue eyes clouding over into stormy waters with the onset of a mission. Warmth and fondness left their bodies sharply, a withdrawal that made her breathing catch. Their stolen moment was over.

The clip of heeled boots on the steps were deafening, consuming her mind as they slowly made their way to the lower deck. Angelica breezed through the hammocks with authority she shouldn't possess. When she paused by their hiding place, Jack rolled, his body shifting elegantly until it pinned the Spanish beauty to the wood, the hook in his hand raised and pointed at her eye. Anna slipped from her position a moment later, standing just behind Jack to the right, flicking her eyes to the steps and back, keeping them safe.

"You...are a ruthless, soulless, crossgrained cur," Jack hissed, his voice a rough whisper in the gentle sway of wind and soft water. It was a greeting Angelica had been expecting, but the venom behind his voice was almost jarring, a bite that wouldn't heal, not completely.

"I told you I had a ship," She rebuked, eyeing the hook warily as her breathing picked up, sounded strained against the bonds of her vest, laced too tightly around her waist.

"No," Anna interjected with a roll of her eyes. "Blackbeard has a ship, upon which we are now imprisoned." Her gaze landed on Angelica's and the image of the sea during a storm rose to the Spaniard's mind.

"We can do this, Jack," she whispered deliberately dismissing Anna. "The Fountain of Youth. Like you always wanted," she taunted, leaning forward as far as she could without impaling herself on the hook still hanging in her vision.

Anna almost spoke up, almost let her voice float through the air again and provide some sort of an answer, for the both of them. But she didn't. She couldn't speak for Jack and she knew it. She couldn't control his decisions, and for all she knew, immortality by way of golden chalice may still be in the cards.

"Blackbeard. Edward Teach. The pirate all pirates fear. Resurrector of the dead in his spare time," Jack listed darkly, taking away the hook in favor of using it to gesture with, accenting his words with his movements in a way Anna could define as art.

"He will listen to me," Angelica pressed, pushing her body closer to his. Anna looked away, trying to pretend that her heart didn't clench when her lips hovered over his. He leaned away, though she didn't see it.

"He listens to no one," Jack groaned back, as if Angelica was stupid, was lost in her own delusions.

"Maybe to his own daughter?" Angelica tried, shifting again until her fingers skimmed his forearms, tracing skin Anna knew by heart. Anna's heart clenched in an anger she had begun to relate to Davy Jones and Lord Beckett and the Kraken and her father.

"Daughter, as in beget by?" Jack questioned, ignorant to the battle raging in Anna's chest as the spark of possessive wanting took hold in her veins, burning, singing, searing in a way she didn't understand and didn't like.

"Long-lost. Recently found. Who loves her dear papá with all her soul," Angelica whispered, leaning forward just enough to give the impression of touch, of a whisper of his cheek. Not quite but real enough to make the world stop for a moment. When Jack jerked away, relief rolled off of Anna, mixed with her growing dislike of the Spanish tart.

"He bought that?" Anna asked sarcastically, an eyebrow raised. Angelica glared at her over Jack's shoulder, the man's body lined with a tension Anna could read. Things weren't going according to plan, they would be stuck here, with nowhere to go and no one to rely on but each other.

"I sold that," Angelica sneered.

Anna shifted, pulling Jack and by succession, Angelica swiftly into a shadowed corner as the Quartermaster stalked by, his steps halting and uneven. Her quick eyes watched him go, forcing her breathing to fall silent and slow. Her grip on Jack's wrist was bruising, but he didn't seem to mind. The touch kept her grounded, kept her in the moment. The zombie slunk out of earshot and they turned as one to face Angelica.

"Then it's the Fountain of Youth for him or him and you, not you and me," he paused, pushing her further into the wall. "And certainly not for you and me and Annie."

"No, Jack, that's the best part. He will be dead," Angelica whispered, choosing not to linger on his last words, not bothering to cast a glance at the small woman with a steel in her blue eyes.

"Ah. You'll be handling that part yourself, then," Jack guessed sarcastically, rolling his eyes and reaching for the his sword, the comforting weight reassuring him.

"There is a prophecy. Maybe you don't believe in the supernatural," Angelica started, looking earnestly at the both of them, as if Anna could convince Jack to change his mind. The two pirates shook their heads as one.

"No, no, no, we've seen a thing or two," they answered together, as if the words were practiced. Angelica paused, watching the way their lips moved in syncopated motions, as if they were two halves of a whole, a complete set of wings.

"The Quartermaster. The man with no eyes. He is known as eleri ipin, witness of fate. He sees things before they happen. He's never wrong," Angelica whispered fervently, gripping Jack's arm like it was her tether to reality.

"I can do that too, if you don't count women, weather, and other things that are hard to predict," Jack supplied helpfully. Anna chuckled, low and rough and tumbled up in the swarm of energy around them. He cracked a grin in response, the edges of his lips curling up at the sound of her laughter.

"The prophecy is this: Blackbeard will meet his death, within a fortnight, at the hands of a one-legged man, with his greatest enemy watching him fall." Things like that sent shivers down Anna's spine, and this one did not disappoint. Prophecies were terrible things, impossible to reverse but people like to pretend that they can, like to rush and scream and kick and fight Destiny's pull. Anna had learned to go with the tides, and hope the words could be interpreted differently. "That is why he needs the Fountain, Jack," Angelica whispered, slipping from his arms and back upstairs with easy movements.

The sunlight filtered through the cracks in the upper deck, touching Jack and Anna's skin in soft lines of heaven, darkness surrounded the rest of them. Jack turned to her slowly, his lips pulled into a soft smirk.

"Interesting," he mused, leaning against the wall of the ship with his arms crossed over his chest. Anna nodded, carding a hand through her hair and feeling the gentle sway of the waves against the ship.

"Very interesting." She paused, eyes flitting from Jack to the stairs, wondering when they would have to give up their peace. "We can't stay here, though I'm sure the family drama will be amusing."

"What's a poor pair of pirates to do," Jack wondered aloud, his eyes darkening as she moved towards him, resting her body against the wall next to him, their arms brushing.

"S'far as I can see, we have two options," Anna said logically. "Jumping ship or…"

"Mutiny," Jack finished for her, the spark in his eyes seemed to swallow him. She nudged him, leaning her head on his shoulder for a moment.

"No one will think any less of you," she whispered, and she was sure he was picturing a lonely desert island and the Black Pearl shrinking into the horizon, passing over without its Captain. The deepest circles of hell are reserved for betrayers and mutineers, as Jack had told her once.

"I will," Jack muttered after a long moment of silence, nothingness dragging on and on until it wrapped around them and suffocated. She moved, shifted until she met his black eyes, they seemed desperate and broken.

"I can't say anything to change your mind, can I?" she asked, raising a hand to brush along his cheek. He turned away from her, his eyes on the ground. She stepped back, a weak smile on her lips and the soft knowledge that Jack needed to be alone. Becoming what you hated was never easy. She didn't want to go down that road either.

Anna pushed herself from the wall and headed towards the stairs, her steps slow and even, as if praying he would call her back, pull her in, keep her next to him and whisper into her hair. But he needed to be alone, she could tell that much.

The concept of mutiny was too great, too imposing and once upon a time Jack had promised himself he'd never sink that low. Being rejected, jilted, turned away from your home and your mission, it was crushing and terrible and he didn't want anyone to have to face that.

"Love?" he called before she could slip away completely. She paused and looked back, her eyes hopeful despite herself, wishing for something she shouldn't want. The want for affection was going to destroy her, when piracy meant distance but she wanted close. She wanted impossible close.

Jack was her drug and she was addicted and it was so easy to lose herself in the feel of his skin and the taste of his lips.

"I'll be up soon," he whispered, his eyes turning soft and hesitant, as if he'd meant to say something else. She nodded, sending him an encouraging smile that he could only describe as soothing, like the feeling of the waves on your skin.

She mounted the stairs and brought herself into the breeze, breathing in the scent of the ocean like it was the only thing keeping her alive. She braced her arms against the railing, watching the waves and the sunlight playing on them like they were a secret message for her to read. They were a language she couldn't decode, the angels speaking to her. The gold light the voices of the warriors of God, watching over the world with hawkish eyes and booming voices that people interpreted as light and thunder. The ocean kept her grounded, she thought distantly, but her thoughts were currents she could get swept up in too easily. She could get pulled under.

Anna tried to keep herself in the moment, where the sea was inviting and the sun was hot and the breeze was cool and life wasn't so bad. But she wondered, sometimes, in moments where she couldn't put Jack back together again, if he really needed her. She wondered if she was just tacked onto the end of his thoughts, barely remembered.

She wondered if love was always given equally.

Surprisingly, she thought she would be okay, even if it wasn't. Even if love wasn't balanced and she trailed after him. Anna would follow him to the edges of the earth, beyond it, she'd proven her feelings. She'd ended in the same boat, with the crushing assurance that Jack cared for her but couldn't show it, that he wanted her with him but occasionally had to remind himself of her existence and her pain. She wondered if he knew what love was.

And she didn't care.

She had taught Will a long time ago, when chasing Elizabeth seemed impossible and the days were simple, that love meant being willing to care even when the other didn't. Even when they didn't even notice you.

The movement on deck did not disturb her as she gazed out at the horizon and imagined touching it, brushing her fingers across the edge of the earth and finding solace, comfort. She sighed, and the action was long suffering and contented all at once.

She had come to terms with Jack, the idea of love with him was still foreign and unreal, she was learning as she went. It was the only way she could live. Trying to plan it out and map it and understand it was no way to continue. Jack was too unpredictable to read.

But she would be there for him, whenever he decided he was ready, whenever he wanted her.

She absently drew her fingers across the black and red railing and wondered if Jack would ever see what he did to her. Bent her in half, twisted her heart in his hands, pulled her across changing tides and hung her out to dry. And she was okay with it, every time.

She went willingly.

If she wasn't so enraptured with him, she would be ashamed of herself. She wasn't supposed to follow after anyone, she was supposed to forge her own path, carve her own way, part the wind and change the tides and impact someone and something greater. She was a pirate, and she was hopelessly in love with another pirate, one who could never see her in the same light she saw him.

On dark days he was the sun, in the night he was the only thing that mattered and he was intoxicating. And this was dangerous. The thought was frightening in a way nothing else is, where if it came down to her life or his, she wouldn't even have to think.

Where do you go from there?

She scrubbed at her eyes and told herself she was over-thinking it, making something out of nothing. She could get herself hurt that way.

"Ah, there you are, Annie," Jack's rough voice called out, sounding brighter than it had in days, sounding chipper, like he'd changed something internally. She smiled, and the action didn't feel forced or strained. Falling into happiness was natural around him.

She turned to face him, away from the sea and her thoughts, pushing back any doubt, any mistake, any wish for something a little bit better. She was with Jack, and that was enough.

His hand fell over hers on the railing, and his lips curved into a smirk that didn't seem as hollow as it had before. He'd pushed down the discomfort, the pain of memory and images of deserted islands in the middle of the Caribbean. He'd managed to pull himself from the currents of depression and self hatred.

Her eyes met his and the blue took him back, they looked sad, huge and worried like she was drowning in her own thoughts. His rough hand gripped hers tighter and she smiled brighter, like she needed to touch to assure herself that he was real. Jack sent a long look over the horizon and nodded to himself, as if confirming a theory about the weather.

"Tonight," he said softly. The mutiny was on, there was no other way. She turned to him completely, her hand rising almost hesitantly to brush against his cheek. Her mouth opened, her brow furrowed as if she wasn't sure what to say. His expression faltered, just enough for her to be sure he wore a mask and it was tough but it wasn't real. He hated the decision, hated himself even more for making it. But he felt boxed in, shifted into a cage where mutiny was the only answer. The only way to save them and escape Blackbeard and the Fountain and Angelica and the British. They had too many enemies this adventure, too many sides to protect and he was being pushed to do what he hated.

But Anna was watching him like he was the sun and that was always comforting, something he could rely on every time. Her eyes were entrancing and endless and they didn't hold any of the doubt he felt in his chest. Only understanding and safety. Her smile was soft and careful and when she spoke it sent chills down his spine and warmth in his chest.

"I don't think any less of you."