I'm going to ask for five reviews, this time around, only five. I don't mean to sound whiny or needy, it's just that I only did this story because everyone wanted it. I would just like a response, guys. I hope the scene changes aren't confusing, since I'm bouncing between past and present. I really hope you like this, because it's taken me like a week to be okay with it.

-Han

Darkness seeped into The Santiago, shadows clinging to the decaying wood like the eerie ghosts of the crewmen, refusing to leave the mausoleum their ship had become. Silence consumed the broken memory of greatness, of waves crashing against the hull and the sails full with wind that wouldn't lead them astray, and blue skies that never seemed to end. The deteriorating husk felt like a crypt to Jack as he pulled his body carefully into the lower decks through a gaping hole, one that seemed to yawn like the cavernous jaws of a Leviathan he remembered with frustrating clarity. Anna was already inside, moving slowly, her steps only whispers on the rotten wood, like the toes of her boots were kissing the floor.

Vines grew through the cracks, taking half the ship into the embrace of the Cliffside with strong green arms. Everything seemed grey, dipped in the darkest waters of the sea, where the dead travel between the worlds and leave behind their misery. The air was wet, heavy with humidity and heat, and long tendrils of vines hung from the ceiling, trying to touch the floor below.

"Step lightly," he whispered softly, as she stretched her arms out wide, as if to embrace the stale air around them, to keep her balance. The boards creaked below her, groaning their frustration at the weight.

"You as well," she answered without turning, her brow furrowed in concentration as she assessed the strength of the floor, taking careful, strategic steps. "You're heavier than I."

"Birds have hollow wings," he answered, his gold teeth sparkling in the low light with his smirk. She chuckled, reaching a set of stairs that would undoubtedly take them to the Captain's cabin above, where the lasting corpse of the Captain would rest for an infinite eternity.

"As long as it's not a hollow head," she quipped back, taking the stairs two at a time with a grace Jack didn't think she possessed, balancing on the very edges. Moonlight flooded the room they entered, and both pirates caught the shine, the ethereal glow of riches they'd only imagined, layers of gold and jewels that glittered dully with years of neglect. They were resilient, like an eternal flame refusing to disappear in a gust of smoke at the call of the wind.

Their eyes traveled the expanse of treasure as one, ancient gems and maps to half-forgotten worlds buried beneath piles of silver and gold, until their eyes found the large bed, curtains drawn back and grown dusty over the years. A skeleton grinned back at them, a red nightcap askew on what was left of his grey skin. Coarse hair clung to sallow and almost nonexistent cheeks, his gaunt fingers clutched at a piece of yellow parchment, held perfectly in place while the rest of him had slumped lifelessly to the side. The empty caverns of his eyes bored into the pair, like the Once Captain was trying to tell them something with his blank, skeletal smile.

"Ponce De Leon," Jack whispered, almost in awe.

"He doesn't look to be dead two hundred years," Anna whispered, almost fearfully, her blue eyes flicking over the resilient memory of skin and hair on his face, refusing to decay fully. He couldn't have been dead that long, the ghost of life still echoed on his face, not yet drained away, not yet gone.

"And so the plot thickens," Jack murmured, his body half swallowed in the shadows that consumed the cabin around them, the breadth of the room obscured by a darkness that seeped into their skin. "Adequately supplemented by the contents of such thickness," he added with a strained light-heartedness that didn't fully reach his voice, as he gazed at the layers of gold buried in the room.

"If forty pirates dreamt forty nights of treasure, it would not match the contents of this room," an almost rusty feminine voice sounded out across the inky darkness, reverberating through the silence, her Irish lilt making the words sound musical. Jack and Anna spun as one, reaching for their weapons with quick, assured hands. "Don't." That was a command, simple and confident, like she'd been giving them all her life.

A shadowed figure came into view slowly, the darkness clinging to the woman's body as if to keep her in their realm. The dull shine of a pistol caught their eyes first, the barrel pressed snugly against Former-Captain Barbossa's temple, pressing into the grey skin until a mark would be left afterwards, if Barbossa saw an afterwards.

"I won't hesitate," the woman said, grinning hollowly in the darkness. Barbossa rolled his eyes, shifting slightly to rub at the joining of wood and flesh in his peg leg as if it pained him. Anna swallowed, trying to make out the features of the woman whose voice struck a chord somewhere in her chest.

"You," he said softly, his young face crumpled into confusion that leaked into his eyes. He wasn't talking to the one with the gun, his eyes trained on the man he once called enemy. He'd never seen him like this, traces of white powder in the cracks of his face, his eyes a kind of empty Jack had never seen in a pirate's before, like he was defeated. Barbossa was sitting against a tightly locked treasure chest, his good leg resting awkwardly beneath the heavy wooden stump, his wrinkled fingers rubbing into the space where the skin ended almost mournfully.

"You," Barbossa replied uninterestedly, as if a gun wasn't pressed against his head, as if he might never see anything ever again, as if he was the one holding the weapon. A flicker of a spark lit in his eyes, wavering for a moment where he remembered who he used to be, pirate, all cackling laugh and barked orders and sea spray against his face. Times had changed and he hated that.

"I'm not here to play games," the woman hissed testily, shoving the pistol until Barbossa's head snapped sideways, the crack in his neck sounding out in the silence louder than a clap of thunder or the booming voice of a God. Her icy blue eyes fixed on the two pirates before them, as if daring them to make a move.

"Why are ye here, lass?" Barbossa asked in barely restrained frustration, rolling his head as much as he could in the restrained space, trying to alleviate the sharp jolt of pain the push had caused him.

"Blackbeard," she answered in a clipped tone, her grip on the gun tightening until even Anna could see the whites of her knuckles. Just the name sparked something in the woman's eyes that infiltrated every aspect of her, until she breathed bloodlust and her heartbeats sounded like gunfire.

"Coincidentally, the same reason we are here," Jack said as lightly as he could, his nimble fingers reaching slowly for the sword at his belt. The woman cocked the gun, her lips set in a firm line. Anna could see that the woman was beautiful in a rough way, her long red hair tied back with a black bandanna that clashed with her tanned skin that seemed to have been embraced by the sun instead of kissed by it. Her body was muscled, less feminine grace and more brute strength she had honed through years at sea. Her blue eyes were cold, but vibrant, endless.

"And who is we?" the woman asked sarcastically, her lip curled into a feral snarl and her body ready to act the instant they affiliated themselves with the scum she'd come to eradicate, the stain on the world she'd come to wipe clean. Vengeance had long taken her, erasing any innocence she'd harbored, any good left to salvage. She was a machine made to kill, made to survive. Any traces of the woman she was were gone. She didn't even miss them.

"Captain Jack Sparrow," Anna introduced with the same air she carried when Jack met her on a dock in Port Royal, an excitement beneath the surface that never died and always wanted more than the monotony of regular life. The woman across from them could feel that through the air between them, the same naiveté she carried when she was that young, caring only for the wind against her face and the horizon always out of reach. She had grown from that now, scars overlapping scars had made her reject the foolish dreams of freedom.

"And King Annabelle Windsor," Jack finished with a flourish of his arm, bowing slightly as he winked at her from the corner of his eye. Anna grinned, all white teeth and nervousness that he could read with only a glance. That title brought back memories, a Goddess set free and a ship consumed by crushing waters, so much had changed, but that smile was still there. She was still there. "You may be wanting to be showing her some respect," Jack added with a conspiring wink.

The gun fell from slack hands.

The docks of London were cold, the chill seeping into the young woman's skin until she felt like she was made of ice, like she was a part of the frozen wind that struck her tan cheeks. A sliver of silver moon hung above her like a pendulum, ready to end her life for running, her punishment for leaving them behind. Calico Jack was gone, the man she loved more than air, was nothing more than a ghost on the wind she would lay down with that night, half her bed empty and filled with his memory.

And when she had one of those bad dreams, when she woke up in a sweat, she'd roll into nothing, roll into no one. Her fingers would reach out to twine in his hair and find nothing but the coarse cotton of a pillow undented by the weight of his body. She was cold without him. So cold it hurt.

Anna followed the path of the gun as it reeled through the air in slow motion, catching the blue light of the moon that filtered through the cracks in the ceiling, shining dully. The pistol clattered to the floor, the heavy weapon rebounding off the weak wood and echoing around them until it mirrored their stuttered heartbeats. The woman was left with slack hands and an open mouth that seemed to be ready to form a word, a name, one she hadn't tasted on her lips for years. Her eyes were wide, cold icy blue was vulnerable, like she was for weeks after she made the trade, her body for her freedom, like she was the night the little bundle passed from her hands to her closest friend.

"Wesson," she whispered, those depthless blue eyes watering on the edges, sparkling in the blanket of darkness that surrounded them. "Take care of her, please, watch over her," she pleaded with Edward Wesson, the only one who survived the British raid on their cove. The little bundle of blankets in his arms was sleeping, blue eyes that looked like hers closed, thankfully, closed. She was named for her, the Captain hated that.

She should, have been named for Jack or Mary, whose dying words were screams in her head, refusing to leave her as she tossed in the middle of the night, nightmare rolling behind her eyes.

"Anne, I swear to you, she will be safe." The older man's promise made her breathing ease, the white-knuckled grip on his jacket slacked. He cradled the little girl like she was precious, like she wasn't the bastard child of pirate and prince, the former using her as an excuse to avoid execution. "But where will you go?" he asked softly, warm brown eyes boring into her soul. He already knew, but he had to ask.

Barbossa didn't wait, the echoes of the fallen gun pounding through his head as he launched himself across the breadth of the cabin, his wooden leg digging into the rotten deck to give him leverage. He reached blindly for the sword at his side, an automatic reaction that he couldn't stop, even if he wanted to. His fingers brushed the handle, the ship lurched violently, the tender grip the vines held on the vessel slipping.

Four pirates were thrown brutally to the ground, gold necklaces and coins raining down on them in a barrage of heavy metal riches. Anna's head slapped against a metal chest and she heard a chorus of demons singing in her ears, the noise almost blocking out the pain that jolted down her spine and left her vision fading in and out of an eternal darkness. She wondered, briefly, if this would be where she would die, clinging blindly to anything within reach as a two-hundred year old ship tore from the side of a cliff.

"When I die, you have to lay me next to his ghost," she said, looking between the cracks in the dock to the rolling black waves she wished would consume her. "It's better than being alone, Wesson, anything's better than alone."

"Will revenge make it hurt any less?" Edward was wise, she knew that, but sometimes she wished he would let her be ignorant, let her be free and wild and the pirate she was meant to be. She shook her head, a tear slipping down her cheek.

"How do I keep going? How do I live on my own?" Her voice broke on the end, her back bowing under the weight of her loss, all the things taken from her. He shifted the baby in his arms to place a hand on her shoulder, his rough palms a reminder of Calico's, callused from years of labor. He never answered her, she hadn't expected him to.

"Don't move!" Barbossa screamed, trying to keep his footing as his wooden leg slipped from beneath him and send him skidding further across the floor. Jack landed heavily next to Anna, his elbow driving into her ribs as the ship pitched again, sending him rolling onto her with what felt like the force of a thousand rocks. She groaned, trying to breath around the pain blaring through her body as Jack struggled to roll off of her. Gravity worked against them, as the vessel threatened to go crashing into the beach a hundred feet below.

The woman was pinned against the far wall, her face blank and eyes far away. Nothing could hurt her, as she swam through memories and wisps of half-forgotten dreams. She was too far gone, too wrapped up in the past, in the memory of a set of eyes that looked just like hers. The crash of gold coins and ancient treasures didn't jolt her from her reverie, the impending slam of the decaying ship into the ground didn't pull her from the past.

It may have been hours later, as they stood in silence beneath the stars, before she spoke again. "Annabelle Windsor," she tried the name out on her tongue for the last time, before she turned her back on the baby with dark hair and blue eyes. "My baby, the princess." The last word was spat with venom, a hatred for the man her baby would call father. "What has become of me?"

"You did what any of us would have. What Reed did, what Rackham would have done. You survived," Wesson whispered, staring her down until all she could do was nod, the grip he held on her shoulder was bruising, leaving another mark for her to carry. Her back straightened, her eyes already drying as she whispered her goodbyes, sparing a backwards glance for the little baby Wesson cradled like she was the most precious treasure. He would go to prince's manor later, knock on the heavy door and threaten the pompous man with everything he had to offer, until the little girl was taken in, shielded from the storms of piracy.

"Jack, I'd be much obliged if you'd…get off me," Anna whispered, once the fragile ship had stilled, leaving Jack and Anna sprawled in the center of the room and Barbossa heaving against the bed posts. The older man's fingers dug into the dark wooden frame, like he'd woken from a night terror in a sweat, panic rushing through his body.

Jack lifted his body carefully, rolling off of her slowly, the pressure of him slipping away in lasting moments that didn't seem to have an end. His dark eyes met hers, boring into the soft blue until a flush rose to her cheeks and her heartbeats picked up again.

"Are you alright, love?" he asked softly, brushing a hand across her forehead, sweeping tangled curls from her eyes. She nodded mutely, having nothing else to say as the pain in her body subsided. The silent woman across from them watched the exchange with a faraway distance that echoed across the worlds, brought memory to now, until her back straightened and her hands fisted and the ache of her body began to set in. She'd been thrown against the wall hard enough to shatter a porcelain vase that had followed her, shattered pieces of china scattered around her.

Anne left London the pirate she was, the broken pieces of her mending into stronger armor until she was the same vicious, blood thirsty woman she'd been before Blackbeard betrayed their position to the British Navy. The darkness consumed Calico's Revenge as it left the dirty city behind, where a little baby would find a father and Wesson would find a respectable job to keep a watchful eye on her. The pirate's eyes rested on starred horizon. She didn't look back.

She wouldn't look back now, not when her daughter was in front of her, smiling softly at the suave Captain Jack Sparrow, like she used to smile at Calico, with that faint flush on her cheeks that reminded Anne of nights wrapped around her husband so tightly she didn't know where she ended and he began. She wouldn't pull the princess from whatever life she'd built for herself to follow after a forty-five year old woman whose heart beat only for revenge. The girl wouldn't be sucked into this storm, this fury of wind and rain and the thirst for blood that consumed the older woman, the need for vengeance, to make the names of the fallen mean something. Annabelle was too young for that, too new to the world that held so much more than a bloody sword and ghosts.

Anne wouldn't take her daughter away from the blue skies and horizon's she herself used to believe in, the love she used to cherish.

A gun cocked, the metallic sound pounding into her head with the force of a god, refusing to leave her mind. Blue met blue, the perfect match. Anna held the pistol with assured hands, Jack having helped her up while the Captain's mind was trying to protect the girl, the little girl with a gun.

"Who are you?" Anna demanded, a harshness in her voice not even Jack had expected, like waves crashing against rocks in a storm. "Are you here to kill Blackbeard or help him or steal the Fountain or what? I'd answer quickly, it would not be hard for me to shoot you," she hissed. Anne saw blue eyes as cold as her own, a mirror reflecting back at her and somewhere, her daughter had a backbone, had that bloodlust already burning through her veins and maybe she was too late to keep her innocent.

"I'm going to kill that bastard, and the likes of his stooges won't stop me," Anne spat, taking a half-step forward that rocked the ship gently, like it was still sailing on calm waters. Her fingers gripped the hilt of her sword, her teeth bared and eyes narrowed.

"Miss, maybe you heard incorrectly, but I can assure you that Captain Jack Sparrow and the Pirate King are stooges of no one," Jack cut in good naturedly, a grin sparkling in the darkness as his gold caps glowed. His arms were spread wide, encompassing Anna in a make-believe embrace, where she could feel the warmth of his arm but not the comfort of a touch. He was too far away and too close all at once. Jack's grin went slack as he caught Barbossa's incredulous look. "We are simply operating under tense and awkward circumstances in order to retrieve my compass and…destroy the Fountain of Youth?" The end was a question, one his eyes knew the answer to.

"Jack, you're not one to throw away a chance at immortality," Barbossa cut in, his glare like a physical touch to the pirate Captain as the older man saw through to his blackened soul. He nodded, like a reprimanded child, his hands dropping to his sides in slow motion.

"As Leon will tell you, it is not true immortality," Anna rebuked for him, nodding in the corpses direction nonchalantly. "Now, if you please, answer my question."

Silence consumed them, the darkness of the world outside infiltrating their very souls as the three stared pointedly at the older woman, her red hair falling around her face and her piercing eyes trained on the pair that matched hers. Mother stared at daughter, daughter at enemy.

"Anne Bonny."