Hey All! So there's this terrible thing called finals, that will prevent me from updating next Tuesday, since Tuesday seems to be my regular update day…so I'll try for Sunday or Monday because of the long weekend. Anyway, I really hope you guys like this, it took forever for me to be happy with it, and I finally got to write Groves who is one of my favorite minor characters. Pease don't forget to review!

-Han

Rain poured from an unforgiving sky in a fierce torrent of sharp droplets and cracking thunder, the grey clouds suffocating White Cap Bay until it seemed closed off from the rest of the world. A realm all its own.

A small band of British soldiers, men of the crown, tramped onto once dry land amidst the downpour with squinted eyes and slow steps, following the one legged man who managed to steal the lead. Groves stumbled slightly to catch up with his appointed superior, one he used to know as enemy. The young privateer could recall a time when the powder-caked man wore a torn hat and sea-worn clothes, was tan and bore crevices in his skin made by the waves and by curses Groves believed in, these days.

They were searching for a new curse, one of eternal Youth that kept you breathing past your time, spat in the face of God and demanded a longer stay. He didn't believe in that any more than he believed in the validity of Barbossa's cause. This wasn't for the crown, it couldn't be.

But they were tramping in the wet sand with the intent to return water from a mythical fountain to the steadily aging Prince of England. And those they left behind on the ship had seemed more unsteady than he knew them to be, and they had spoken of White Cap Bay harboring mermaids, beings born of waves and vice that lusted for the taste of man. He hadn't wanted to believe them, but he knew too much of magic not too. He remembered the way pirates turned to bone under blue moonlight, the way monster and human met and had born Davy Jones, the way a maelstrom had sucked the Flying Dutchman into the depths of the sea just to spit it back out with a new Captain. Groves had seen men return from the dead, refuse to flinch from a blade, he had seen the mists of reality and imagination cross.

He knew of the unlikely, the untrue.

Barbossa's peg leg squished into something half-hidden amongst the white sand. Groves swallowed back bile, a shaky white hand rising to rub over his jaw.

"Is that…?" He couldn't finish.

"Mermaid," Gibbs confirmed, the older man pushing his way forward, grim eyes set on the already decaying flesh of the hybrid beast. Groves had always had an unwilling respect for the man he knew as companion to Jack Sparrow, the kind of brass loyalty the older man had shown throughout years of chasing and being chased was astounding in the world of piracy, as it was described to him. Through their time on ship together, he had learned more of him, stories that couldn't possibly be real, a fathering soul with quick eyes, light fingers, devotion to the soul of piracy. "Give up this madness now," the older man implored, turning his eyes to a stoic Barbossa.

"I cannot," he responded calmly, turning to the ten or so collected men. "Ever walk on the beach, look back, and see your footsteps in the sand? It's like that, except the footsteps lie before me." Barbossa spoke with a level of contempt Groves didn't remember hearing on their brief previous encounters, back when he flew under a black and bone flag. He figured the wig was what changed him.

"Footstep, actually," Gillette muttered to himself, kicking at the sand in frustration. He'd grown tired of chasing after myth and legend and pirates. Unlike Groves, he harbored no secret admiration for the dirty, unkempt ranks of the dammed.

"White Cap Bay, sir," Groves muttered, pointing the dangerously rolling waves, the quick growing swells of foam and danger. "We must hasten!" They needed to get back, to help the other men. Groves' handsome face crumpled, the clean lines and smooth skin marred by his distress.

The screams started then. The mangled cries of the dying crew seemed to infest the air, slaughtering any illusion of beauty within the chaos of the storm. The droplets stung his face, but he turned into the torrent to find the ship. Waves slapped against the side of their vessel, haunting screeches of the mermaids mingled with the screams of men with no way out. They wouldn't make it. The Providence pitched, the force of the creatures against the port side was too much.

"We travel by foot!" Barbossa shouted, turning his back to the water. "Gibbs, I require a heading." His voice had turned sickly sweet, colored with authority and the promise of pain on the horizon.

"Sir. The men!" Groves nearly pleaded, his eyes flicking from his commander and the dying.

"They be dead already," Barbossa said unflinchingly, his eyes impossibly hard. No remorse lined his posture, back straight and shoulders set, he was resigned. He had lived through this before.

"They don't sound dead," Groves spat, glaring at the older, weather-worn man. His back was straight too, the instant need to save, to stop the screams and the pain. That's what he signed up for, why he had sworn his name in service of a King he didn't know for a country he didn't live in.

Barbossa held a pistol to his head, cocking it with a click that managed to be audible over the sound of rain and the last desperate cries of men. "Oh, is that so? But I hear nothing but seagulls nesting. What is it that you hear, Mr. Groves?" His voice was dangerous, a calm no one could explain that shot shivers down the spines of the few collected men remaining.

"Seagulls. Nesting. Sir," Groves whispered reluctantly, his eyes flicking back to the Providence a final time. His mind screamed prayers of salvation he knew God wouldn't listen to. They were lost, the waves their home now.

"Heading, Gibbs?" Barbossa asked, flashing a grin at the older man, exposing decaying teeth and gold caps. Gibbs didn't respond.

The men were turned, watching the ship finally capsize, screams being drowned out as the Providence was taken under by the claws of a death too permanent to reverse.

"My God," Groves whispered, as if his voice wasn't allowed to carry, as if God didn't want to hear him. He wondered, if they waited long enough, if they would see a green flash light the sky like he had the day after Beckett was lost among waves and flames.

"Your head, or my heading, I'll have me one or the other, I don't care which," Barbossa hissed, raising his pistol to Gibbs' head, a vicious look in his eyes. Groves wondered if he held the glare in place to avoid the pain of losing a crew. Every Captain felt that, surely.

Silently, Gibbs raised a shaky hand towards the jungle that blanketed the interiors of the island, the mountains that framed the view. They started walking, wet sand sticking to their boots.

They didn't look back.

Xx

Anna slept like gods dreamed, full of magic and ancient spell work and the slow in and out of the tides flowing through her breath. She slept like humans could only wish, removed completely from the rest of the world and pushed into sounds of the ocean and reflections of the stars on the water. She slept like children did, immune to nightmares and memories.

Curled to his side, Jack slid his fingers across her cheek, watching the way her eyes flicked beneath her lids, never resting, ever roaming, at peace. Her lips were curled into a soft smile, an arm slung over his chest and a leg hitched onto his hip. He chuckled to himself, watching her fingers knot into his shirt, her knuckles brushing the tan skin of his chest.

They'd walked back in a trance, half dead and barely moving, dragging their unwilling bodies back to the longboats, loading in with nervous eyes casting over the waves. They reached the ship slowly, hesitant strokes by the crew towards the red and black monolith before them. The Queen Anne's Revenge lay untouched in the bay, seeming to shine beneath the full moon, the light of the stars reflecting on the ingrained blood and fear that laced the wood. Teach retreated to his cabin, back into the folds of mystery and fear he commanded so well, with only a sharp glance at the Quartermaster before the doors closed.

When the ship moved of its own volition, grateful sailors collapsed almost where they stood, leaning against the railing or barrels to take a moment away from reality. They slept where they could, as the vessel of nightmares drifted to a protected cove closer to the path they would take the next morning. Once they rested away from vixens of the waves, Jack had tugged her hand until they were below decks, sinking into a thin hammock towards the back. Limbs were splayed over each other and their chests were crushed together in an attempt to retain their precarious balance, the feeling of empty air lulling them into content.

She was asleep before Jack could blink.

Anna sighed in her sleep, sinking even closer to him with the release of breath until every facet of her was against him. He chuckled softly, his fingers splaying out against her cheek until his palm cradled her face.

Soft light filtered through the cracks in the ceiling, reminding him that morning had come and their moments of peace were about to melt away. He'd woken only minutes before, with his arm caging her to his body. He wanted to savor this, to pretend like this adventure wasn't happening for just a few more moments.

Jack didn't want to rediscover the art of death, held above his head like knife-sharp pen of a poet, ready to press into the pages and draw inky blood. He didn't want to face the Fountain and rip it from his own fingers, shatter it completely and go back to living each second fearing the Reaper he's met before.

But Jack wasn't a parasite. Living off of another's stolen years would fill him with an emptiness that would infiltrate his heart with its subtle sting until he was dead on the inside. And he knew that.

Being caught between misery and paradise made his heart clench and he resented gods for not having to make the choice, angels for flying above the pain of life and death in its cyclical agonies, men who had their lights burned out and woke up in someplace better. He had no heaven to look forward too, only the barren lands he knew so well.

Anna shifted in his arms and he glanced down, remembering why he'd made the decision to begin with. He wanted to stay with her, for the right reasons. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this good, this wholly put together good, and dammit it all, he didn't want to give it up. This time, he wasn't being selfish.

Living day to day in fear of death beside her might be even better than years of assured youth. And this way, neither of them would watch enemies win, sink into the horizon with eternally soft skin and sharp eyes and quick movements. They would destroy the Fountain, one of the last remaining testaments to gods who meddled with fate, and they would live with a peace in their souls no golden chalice could compete with.

If he's ever done anything, it's keep a calm in his heart that mirrors the soft waves lapping on Caribbean shores. Jack smiled to himself, his thumb making lazy circles on Anna's cheek until her body tensed and pulled long in a stretch that ground her into him. She mumbled to herself, her eyes blinking open slowly, hazy blue eyes looked heavy with sleep.

"Jack?" she asked softly, as if expecting him to be gone, as if she'd thought she'd be alone. He grinned, gold caps glimmering in the early morning light. Her eyes flicked down, taking in their tangled position with a growing sharpness. She looked hesitant for a moment, as if she would extract herself from his embrace, unravel their entwined limbs and stand on her own. But she didn't.

"Aye?" he asked, as she sunk back into his arms, a curl of her hair falling over her eyes.

"Are we really going to traipse through the jungle with a mermaid in a glass coffin to find a magical Fountain that can restore Blackbeard's youth, or has this all been an extremely elaborate dream?" She asked around a yawn, threading her fingers into Jack's shirt as if to keep him from slipping away.

"I'm afraid this isn't a dream, love," he whispered, grinning softly. She groaned, shifting to sit up, the hammock shaking dangerously with the change in movement.

"So traipsing?" she asked, flicking her gaze to the ceiling and the patterns of light seeping through the cracks like they could help her guess the time. Hardly anyone was below decks with them, everyone having slept where they stood the night before or already working.

Jack craned his body up, grinning as he repositioned her to his lap and brushed his fingers back over her cheek. She still looked careworn, but alive. That seemed more than he could ask for, these days. He threaded his fingers through her hair, tugging her down until he could press a soft, gentle kiss to her forehead. When he pulled back, a soft blush colored her cheeks, and he loved that he could still make blood rise in her skin, after months of kisses and touches and being close. He smiled cheekily, a spark in his dark eyes and answered her with an almost reluctant nod.

"Traipsing."