I am so sorry. I can't believe it took me this long to scrounge out four thousand words. I'm usually much better at this and I don't really have an excuse. But, if any of you are interested in Avengers fanfic, bounce over to Archive of Our Own and look up SinningVirtue. I put up my first story there, and so far I've had a lovely response. Thanks so much guys! Asking for five reviews again before I update. We're drawing to a close!

-Han

"Once we're up, what's the plan?" Anna asked, her voice breathy and soft in the cover of darkness as she shimmied further up the palm tree. The rough fronds dug into her back, catching on the cotton of her shirt and tugging insistently like a young child starved for attention. She struggled for purchase, boots slipping precariously as her hands braced her.

"What plan?" Jack answered with a quick smirk in her direction, the expression nearly lost in the blackness that consumed the jungle.

A roll of eyes, the catch of dim light on gold capped teeth, and everything was back where it should be. They worked seamlessly together, the confident give and take of their bodies against the tree as they used their momentum to push up past the leaves. She remembered the feel of salt air against her face on that first adventure, going after Elizabeth. He remembered the way she felt between his hands, coming apart on the deck of his ship in a kiss that left him breathless.

As one, they pushed the ropes over their bodies, allowing it to pool around their boots as they struggled for balance atop the palm tree. Up this high, the air was breathable, a soft breeze whispering against Anna's face in a small grace.

The trees swayed, and she turned her eyes to the stars with her arms spread wide, as if to embrace the sky. She could hear Jack moving above the wind; feel the rope slithering across her boots and into his callused hands. She let him work in silence, allowing her gaze to sweep over the expanse of the breathing life before her, earth she had walked for years, her boots kissing the face of the world.

A soft movement of their perch made her ribs protest, a hiss drawn in between her teeth, a sudden tension in the line of Jack's body, a stilling of his hands. His bottom lip worried between his teeth, and a weight in his chest he wasn't familiar with.

"You trust me?" Jack asked suddenly, his eyes on the thick rope biting into his palm, the coconut he was securing in the cradle of knots and cord. His body was humming in anticipation, feeling the fall before the wind began to bite past him, before the ground raised its hands to meet him. He forced himself steady, flicking his eyes up to an endless blue that had become more familiar than his own dark gaze. Almost shy, almost coy.

His eyes were bottomless and more vulnerable than Anna could remember. She got the feeling this was him hoping, on the edge of begging for her trust, something he'd only ever taken. Jack had never asked for it before.

Maybe he'd never had to. And maybe the silence away from the constant wash of the sea had made him see her differently, see the bruises and the winces and the pain, and need for her to say she would still follow him. Would still sail to new worlds with him by her side. Still be inevitably hurt because of him.

"Always," she answered firmly.

Blue on brown and the night seemed calm, a serene embrace between sky and earth. Jack nodded, sated and worried all at once.

He tried not to think about the mortality of man, of the chance they were throwing away, the things they were allowing to slip through their fingers in a collection of dark marks across fair skin.

Instead he let his makeshift lariat cut through the wet air with the deft air of confidence he wore on his less-than-pristine sleeve. The sound of it whistling through the spaces between them echoed a sharp bite inside his head.

The rope pulled taut between his hands, calluses and scars against the cord with a familiarity that left him imagining the waves in the sway of the palm beneath him. He dragged the rope towards him, gold skin tensing, muscles flexing beneath the veneer as he poured his strength into the action. Warm fingers trailed fire over his hands before resting on the rope just in front of him, Anna adding her own power to the process, making nature bend to their whim.

The palm across from them bent as if in prayer, fronds dipping towards the ground, trailing the whispers of kisses on the earth and tangling with the leaves from their own tree, pieces connecting like the linking of fingers, hand holding of lovers never allowed to touch.

Anna's warmth was pressed against his side, urging him forward with soft insistence, until a step into infinite nothing left him even between the two trees, and Anna was right next to him, her body coiled and ready for the jump.

"The prisoners are escaping!"

The peace of the evening shattered, reality crashing in on their chests as heartbeats picked up, stuttering their beats too fast and too loud, almost overpowering the sound of the Spanish army rushing through their barracks towards the two pirates. Barbossa still sat quietly in the same place they left him, staring at the sky, the two poised like angels on top of a tree, the night framing them, silhouettes lithe and feline as they hold balance.

When they let go, air embraces them with all the force of the sea in the midst of a storm, catapulting their bodies forward and for a moment, just a moment, they can fly. Anna can't think of a time she's felt more alive, and Jack feels like a bird, wind caressing wings made of the night sky.

When they land again, it was with the jarring grace of a platform that moves with them, limited space and balance held together by a whisper of air and the dig of boots into the core of the palm tree. They crouched down, eyes glowing in the darkness and mapping out escape routes plucked from a fabric of stars and laid out before them.

"They're escaping! Fan out! Find them!"

Soldiers rushed down half-formed pathways, ferns and grass stomped into submission with their constant marching, now kicked up with the flurry of movement. Swords glinted in torchlight, the malicious fire hidden within the steel as they are raised high. Dark eyes roamed the heavens in search of pirates with wings, birds whose flights were unhindered by the ropes that had bound them.

The palm trees moved above them, the swish of fronds against each other in the casual meeting of friends that had never touched before. The choked grunt from above at a harsh landing, the way the wind felt hot and heavy against their faces.

The Spanish charged towards the pirates who leapt atop trees in ways they had deemed impossible, sharing space in a give and take that shouldn't have been able to support both of them. They did it anyway. They defied gravity, God's will. They flew in ways humans should never, crossed the bridge of air into the heavens.

Barbossa sat quietly, watching birds flit from nest to nest, and the careful way a shadow in the corner of his vision rescued another winged creature from falling, hands gripping a wrist and a coy smile in the dark. Sometimes he hated that he was alone.

Sometimes he hated that the sea had eaten everything he might have been and all the people he might have come to love.

But then he would smell the salt lined thinly in the air that meant so much more to him after all those scattered coins finally made it back to that chest, and everything would be as it should. Alone and with the sea so wrapped around his veins that his blood was water and the water was saturated with his blood. Give and take and be embraced by the ocean.

He knew his life, and lived it to its fullest.

But bound in rope left him without the scent of the sea and the call of gulls and the gusts of wind blowing white water at his face. It left him grounded without the subtle sway of the ocean matching time, a metronome of water and space. It left him bleak and empty and hollow.

"Hold your fire! I want them alive!"

He wondered idly if Jack thought he would live through half of his stunts, if when he plunged himself headfirst into the fray, he was sure he would come out the other end just as whole. Maybe he didn't think he could be harmed, that the expanse of tightly corded muscle and scars only proved that he couldn't be touched.

Barbossa had grown out of that, had tasted immortality and gotten bored, had turned away from it in favor of satisfying the burn in chest, the uncomfortable ache. Like he'd lost something he hadn't even noticed slipping away.

He was just going to sit there, wait quietly in the shadow of the trees and allow himself to be pushed along his memories and the nuances in Captain Jack Sparrow, when a hand lay down on his shoulder, wrenching him back from all the little things he knew could bite back.

Groves smiled at him, dirty and unkempt, wig long gone and a eyes that had tasted freedom bright with energy. More a pirate than a soldier, more alive than he'd ever seen the man. A knife bit into the ropes that bound him and Barbossa flashed a curious look at him, unsure why he still held loyalty, still held anything when they all could have run for it. Turned tail and left without a word from him or Bonny.

"I figured that was the signal," the young man supplied easily, snapping the remaining rope and passing Barbossa his effects. He stood carefully, the numbness in his damaged limb still frightening, still jarring. His sword was a comforting weight in his hand, grounding in ways just standing could never be.

"Am I to assume you've been persuaded by our dear Bonny?" Barbossa asked, lacking an air of charm Groves had come to expect when dealing with pirates. He supposed Captain Jack's musical voice had spoiled him to any other brutish and dirty buccaneer.

"Her words were taken into account," he answered easily as they made their way through the outstretched arms of the forest, ferns and vines trailing across their shoulders and brushing their faces with all the affection of a lover at midnight.

He felt awake, as though he'd spent the last years asleep, lulled by the rigidity of the navy, walking carefully on a tight wire he didn't know existed with his eyes closed. He was so close to freedom he could taste it, could see it in the way Jack and Anna breathed. He wanted it.

Needed it.

So he would take it. Turning his back on Anne Bonny, whose grin in the darkness had made chills roll down his spine, he had left his wig in the dirt, stiff back hanging on a tree like a discarded like an old coat. The sea was in his blood now.

He was a part of it, and it a part of him.

They ran as best they could, Groves dutifully slowing his pace to match Barbossa's uneven gait, scrambling around Spanish soldiers, submerging themselves into the shadows, becoming a part of them.

Groves thought he could hear the Anna's faint laughter in the distance, just over the rustling of trees, the conversation of sedentary beings reaching for the sky, and the grin on his face couldn't be wiped away. He hadn't ever thanked the two of them, Jack and Anna, for inspiring this light in his chest, for releasing him from the duty he thought he owed the crown, for setting him free.

He thought he might.

He and Barbossa ran, stumbled, flew back towards Bonny and the rest of the crewmen, allowing Jack and Anna to find their own way amidst the tangled web of Spanish words and steel, the night sky that blocked their path. His cool eyes cast back a moment, and he swore he saw a figure waving from the trees.

Spanish soldiers dropped like flies, eyes rolling in their heads, the whites glowing like the soft, resilient moon as their bodies slumped to the ground, heads aching with the force of dropped coconuts raining down from above.

A grin from above, an arm wrapped around a waist, a rope held again between his hands, and Anna's soft body pressed against his. It made him remember long nights in his cabin, where his sheets would smell like her, and they would be wound so tightly around each other, he wasn't sure whose heartbeats were whose. Times like that, Jack didn't think he'd ever let go, that he would ever have to. That she would always be perfectly safe in his grip.

Without preamble, he jumped, allowing the rope to snap taut and take their weight as they sailed through the air, swinging out of range. Wind sailed past their faces, and he could feel her smile, could taste her laugh on the sticky air. Anna's grip around his waist was unyielding, like she never wanted to let go, like the very idea of being separate left her shaky and weak.

They touched down with grace Anna had never quiet gotten used to seeing in Jack, an elegance defied by his image and perfected in his actions. He was the water, strong and flowing smoothly with every movement.

Running through the web of trees was almost cathartic, the heavy up and down of their chests, the scream of their lungs and their heartbeats as they push their bodies onward, boots catching on the lips of tree roots, stumbling until the other catches with all the rough gentleness they'd grown to love. It was like setting free all those reserves inside of your chest, just being animal, feral, a part of the forest around them until they weren't even people.

They were darkness, they flew in side of it, and stars were peppered inside of their wings.

Xx

Bonny waited anxiously, nervousness a bitter taste on her tongue as she rocked back and forth, her fingers worrying the handle of her sword, boots tapping inconsistent staccato beats on the ground. Her daughter hadn't come back, hadn't melted out of the darkness and back into her life like she should have by now.

She shouldn't have let her go.

Ever.

The regret is sharp and biting, a twist in her chest that leaves her heart knotted and her stomach sinking. She'd never regretted her actions before, had looked back on her life with a distant understanding and appreciation of someone who learned from their mistakes.

But her daughter was an exception, the pain it drove into her was fresh and new. The guilt at forgetting, at letting her be lost in an urban jungle, tangle of smoke and dilapidated houses was clear as the sunrise.

She couldn't take it back, couldn't clutch a silent baby to her and turn back for the waves and the life and the world full of things that could have hurt her and could have freed her. And now she hid shamelessly behind Barbossa's pant legs, her own drive to get back at Blackbeard, all to avoid the glaring truth.

She had to tell Anna.

There wasn't any way around it, and every second spent breathing the same air as the girl who had grown into an undeniably beautiful woman was torture on her heartstrings, a pounding in her head. She couldn't keep skimming the edges of Anna, couldn't stick with cursory glances and clipped words. She wanted endless conversation, an embrace that made time stop and lie down because she deserved to hold her child again. She deserved happiness. If only for a moment.

And the time was winding down, the moon high and stars out and the fires from the camp were casting ghostly shadows across the jungle, which breathed beneath her boots. And Anna hadn't come back, arm in arm with a man so much like Calico it burned. She'd could nearly taste the way they looked at each other, all pent up affection and a love that crossed the lines of fear and blame and pain and life and death. They had transcended all the things that had held her back.

Anna had grown past her mother's legacy, and she hadn't even been there to see it. But she promised herself the chance to tell Anna she was proud, to whisper that she'd grown up to be all mama could have hoped for.

She just had to wait for the right moment, after Blackbeard lay with eyes empty before the Fountain of Youth, waters that would be tainted with his blood. For when they stood before the sea again, and the waves brushed against her boots and welcomed her home. When she could take the time to keep Anna close and away at the same time, sent back with her Captain Jack and close enough to cross paths now and again.

They would see each other in Tortuga, would trade stories over rum that would flow infinitely, and they would have everything Anne had given up so many years before.

When the jungle starts to speak, the rustling of a waking world and the noises of people passing through the arms of it grew loud, her back snapped to attention, spine stiff and blue eyes alert and roaming the shadows. A moment later and she fell back into her original position, slouched against a tree. She could hear the uneven gait of a wooden leg against the ground, absorbing the shock of a missing limb with every step and knew Barbossa was coming. There were no affected swaying, no graceful, fluid steps following, indicating Jack and Anna, the two seeming to be joint at the hip. That meant the stern and quick steps were Grove's, who appeared only moments later with a wistful look in his eyes.

He'd made his decision.

She smiled at him in greeting, something warmer than it had been; pieces of the cold mask she'd acquired over the years were falling in fragments around her. The young man sent her an answering grin, one he didn't seem to be able to wipe off. It glowed from within him, and somehow she knew, when the time came, he would follow Jack and Anna with the same reverent devotion Gibbs gave the two of them.

"Where are they?" the question slipped off her tongue before she could stop herself. And some nights she wished her lips would just fall off, because the raised brow she got from Barbossa was enough to make a faint flush creep into her face. She shouldn't be ashamed for caring, for wanting to know her daughter was safe.

"Your kin's just fine," Barbossa nearly sing-songed, his cracked and reed-thin voice colored with amusement. Groves pulled back a moment, confusion in his eyes, and one night Anne would just stay up and cash in all of her bad luck. Maybe she'd win something.

"She better be, Barbossa, or our tenuous partnership will come to a sticky end," she hissed, old viciousness, old pirate rising in her and taking hold fast enough to make Groves' eyes widen. She didn't think he'd seen much hatred in piracy, hadn't seen the cruel underbelly of the world that had stolen her heart so many years before.

Well, let him know what he was doing, what he was getting himself into.

"I am disinclined to pursue further conversation with you until your precious daughter has returned," Barbossa muttered, phrases dropping from his lips in ways he'd only associated with Jack. An air about him that spoke of a time before they were enemies and the tides had turned against them. Groves supposed that everyone Jack met caught a taste of him, maybe they couldn't help but imitate him.

"Prepare to move out!" Groves shouted at a wordless command from Barbossa. He'd been conditioned to take orders, to follow without doubt, with a stony face and quick actions. Even if his soul was free, for the moment, his body would follow in the footstep of his officer. For the moment, he would play the part of a soldier.

"The enemy is soon upon us!" Barbossa shouted, turning abruptly on his peg leg, the action fluid and smooth, lacking all the cumbersome steps he'd been taking since the trip began. Agility hid in his bones, filled the spaces between missing limb and ground. He stared past the collection of pirates and soldiers, of enemies and friends, of survivors looking to gaze upon daylight, at two beings he couldn't see. They melted out of the shadows, arms linked and stupid grins lighting their faces. "I'm sorry about the Chalices, Jack, Annie, but I've an appointment to keep. I'll not be going back."

Bonny's eyes jerked to the Captain's, heard the nickname fall from easily acquainted lips, one that had seen her daughter grow into a pirate. Jealousy stabbed at her soul; he'd seen more of her daughter than she ever had, maybe more than she ever would. Had seen her become something more than herself and something less than the baby girl she'd left behind. Had seen her ebb and flow like the tide until she stood strong.

"No need," Jack said brightly, lifting a single silver Chalice in his hand, gleaming in the patchwork of light over them.

"Shall we drink?" Anna asked, raising her own in a mock toast. Her hair was matted to her forehead, sweat and sticky air making her skin shine in the moonlight, making her glow to Jack's eyes. Her gaze was luminous in the soft light, almost silver, almost the color of steel in the night. She was something from another world, grin like a whip, like the drag of a knife across his skin, not enough to break skin but enough to leave raised welts. A lasting mark that didn't bring the pain of every other almost love he'd ever known. She was an eternally living flower, frost that never melted, tide that never turned, wind always at his back.

And Bonny could see it all written on his face. He was further gone than he would ever admit and something in her heart snapped, broke, fractured into little pieces. Because she didn't have the right to approve of him, to give them her blessing, though something told her he deserved it more than any other man she'd crossed in her long years.

"We drink at the Fountain!" Barbossa cheered, sword lifting, catching the light and it was a torch for them to follow. Eyes lifted, masks up for the moment, memories and nuances and thoughts that were true, the ones that came out at night, were put on hold. An adventure called, and Anna could feel it burning through her fingertips, catching on the cool silver of the Chalice.

Jack slipped an arm into the crook of her elbow, tugging her along with all the warmth and affection of someone who had known her far longer than he had, a connection in their souls that transcended a jungle and the sea and the world.
Bonny brushed against her shoulder, and in some far corner of her mind, shrouded in darkness and the carnal fear of her father, she thought the touch was familiar, in the way air is, the way ocean spray was against her face. She jerked away on instinct, as if the older woman's touch had burned her.

"Onto the Fountain, no turning back now" she whispered Jack instead, forcing herself away from Bonny's hollowed out eyes, blue and silver that saw straight to her heart. Jack smiled down at her, too knowing, and his fingers skimmed the inside of her wrist. His answer was a sigh on a nonexistent wind, a kiss she couldn't feel, a heartbeat.

"Wouldn't dream of it, love."