Hello!

I would have posted this earlier, but there was something wrong with my Word Documents, so to cut a looooooooong story short I had to re-type everything onto another typing programme. Anyway, enjoy!

"Aaand... this one's all up to you..." I stepped away from Jack.

"Helpful. Thanks for the support," he said through gritted teeth as his dad took several steps towards him. The Charts were shaking in his hand and his face had gone a little red.

"What," he seethed, spit flying out from between his clenched teeth. "Is this?"

"Erm..." Jack hesitated. I willed him to tell the truth on the principle that I quite liked my husband alive. He, it seemed, did not value this quite as much. "Not mine."

Teague obviously did not believe him. "Oh really? Well it was left on my ship, where you had been staying. It's not mine. It's not my crew's. It must be yours."

Jack widened his eyes innocently, "Never seen 'em in my life."

"Well," Teague narrowed his eyes. "You won't mind if I burn them then."

Jack's front teeth bit down onto his bottom lip and he leaned forwards on the balls of his feet as Teague held the Charts over a burning candle. Teague kept his eye locked on his son as he lowered the Charts over the flame. I could see Jack swallowing back words of protest, almost shouting out several times, but refraining until the flame was dancing less than an inch away from the Charts. "DON'T!" he suddenly called out and then clamped a hand over his own mouth.

Teague pulled the Charts away from the flame. "So they are yours?"

"Erm... no."

"Well, whose are they?"

There was a brief moment of silence where Teague and I both waited for Jack to answer. "Isabel's," he suddenly pointed at me. I jumped at the sound of my name. My mouth dropped open.

"Excuse me?" I raised an eyebrow at Jack, but he wasn't really looking. Teague's eyes slid over to meet mine and I was suddenly terrified that he would believe him. "They're not," I said shakily, starting to panic about whether or not I sounded believable. I should be because I was telling the truth, but what if he were to misinterpret that? I was somehow doubting myeslf even though I knew I was right. This was madness. I prayed for Teague to believe me. He let the silence drag on. Then he stared back at Jack again. I looked at jack too and we both glared at him until he cracked.

"Alright, they're not," he admitted and I felt myself relax. "But they are Barbossa's." He sounded triumphant and looked pleased that he had found someone to blame who couldn't slap him the second Teague left the room.

"Barbosssa's?" Teague repeated. Jack nodded.

"Yup, he's the Chartman, that's what they call him," he looked sideways at me during Teague's disbelieving silence. "Isn't it, Belle?"

I narrowed my eyes, "No."

That would teach him to blame things on me. He narrowed his eyes righ back at me, which for some infuriating reason made me want to laugh.

Teague snapped his fingers to draw Jack's attention back to him. "Why would you care so much about something of Barbossa's?"

He'd got him there. "Alright..." he said slowly. "They used to be Barbossa's."

"And now they're yours," he said it more as a statement than a question, but Jack still felt the need to make a contradictory noise of protest. Teague cut across him before he could launch into a farfetched story in an attempt to get himself off the hook. "Are you planning on using them or not, lad?"

Jack made a series of highly ambigious noises ranging from "umm" to "well, you see..." before finally sighing and settling on, "Yes, yes I am."

We both watched for Teague's reaction. I think a part of me was waiting for his head to actually explode. He stayed still for a very long time. Jack looked nervous. Teague turned to me and I almost wet myself with fear. His tone was chillingly polite, "Isabel, would you mind waiting outside while I have a... word with Jack-y?"

I think a head-explosion would have scared me less. "Umm..." I said, moving slowly towards the door, but somehow scared to get too close to Teague and his scarily nice smile. I approached him slowly, feeling the need to keep my eyes on him in case he snapped. The second I had past him I scurried out of the door and felt a breeze Teague slammed it behind me. The movement of the slam vibrated slight along the deck beneath my feet. "Nice knowing you Jack," I whispered as all hell broke loose behind the door.

They argued for hours. There were brief moments of silence before the indistinct shouting started up again, muffled but not silenced by the walls of the cabin. I helped the crew get ready to set sail, although there was a definite air of uncertainty among all those on deck as to the future of the Pearl and her Captain. Once when I walked back from the galley to load more supplies on I caught Pintel and Ragetti using a glass to hear what was going on.

"What's happening?" I whispered to Pintel. He jumped slightly through the shock of me being there. He shrugged.

"Sorry, Isabel," he said sincerely. "It doesn't look good for our Captain. We think he might kill him."

Ragetti nodded in agreement, "I've heard the him say 'carve out your fig' at least seven times in the past minute."

"Are you sure?" Pintel asked. "I could have sworn he said 'starve on our brig'."

"No!" Ragetti rolled his eyes. "Why would he say that? We're not on his ship!"

"Well he aint gonna say 'carve out your fig', is he? What's a vegetable got to do with anything?" Pintel glared at his friend.

"A fig aint a vegtable!"

"Yes it is!"

"Not it aint!"

"Well what is it then?" Pintel snapped.

"It's..." Ragetti paused, "That thing in your insides what's all pink."

"Most things on your insides are all pink! It's a vegetable!"

"Not it aint!" Ragetti turned to me. "Tell him, Isabel. Is a fig a vegetable?"

"No." I shook my head. Ragetti looked triumphant... for a second. "It's a fruit."

"Ha!" Pintel was pleased with Ragetti's misfortune. Ragetti, however, was not.

"Shut up! You didn't know either!"

"Sssh! Both of you!" I hissed. "I'm trying to listen."

"But we don't know which he said!" Ragetti protested.

"I think we can safely assume it was nothing to do with figs," I snapped. They both shut it and the three of us leaned in to press our ears to the wall. It was difficult to hear anything, but I could hear Jack's voice which was a very good sign that he was still alive. Things got a little quieter and we had to strain to hear anything.

"Well, well." The voice in my ear was so loud I almost screamed. My heart beat a thousand times in a second that seemed to last a year until I saw that it was only Gibbs. "That's usually just you and Jack having an argument in there. Or you and Will. Or you and Elizabeth. Or you and-"

"Thank you, Gibbs, I get your point!" I said loudly. He grinned and I smiled back at him. "Where have you been?"

"Oh," he shrugged. "Here and there."

"Are you back to join us?" I asked. "If Jack lives I mean."

"Aye," he nodded. "I may as well. I've missed the Pearl, she's a fine ship an' hard to be away from once you've gotten to know her."

"You're telling me!" I smiled in agreement. Together Pintel, Ragetti and I filled Gibbs in on everything he'd missed since he had been away and the current agrument going on behind the door of the Captain's Cabin. Gibbs didn't look too happy about the prospect of the Fountain of Youth.

"Aye, Teague's right to be talk-, er... shouting him out of it. It's a dangerous thing that and there's not all that much known about it."

This made me feel uneasy. "I knew it. I knew there was always too high a price to pay for immortality."I muttered just as the blazing row behind us went deadly silent. We waited for it to start up again, but the silence stretched on longer than it ever had before. We waited. Nothing happened for a long time and all aboard the Pearl was silent.

"Maybe he killed him," Ragetti said eventually when the silence was too much to bear.

"Which one do you recon did the killing?" Pintel whispered. "I recon it was Teague cause he's old. Knows how to kill a man more than Jack does."

"Yeah, but he's too old," Ragetti reasoned. "Might not have it in him."

"Ah, but..." Pintel stopped as the door we were all staring at opened. Teague stepped out and Pintel, Ragetti and Gibbs scattered. I was left standing on my own. Teague straightened out his hat and brushed a mark off his jacket. He looked at me and smiled.

"Hello, Isabel," he said pleasantly.

"Er... hello," I replied, noticing that he didn't have the Charts with him. He walked past me, still smiling. I walked over to the cabin suddenly very alarmed about the safety of my husband.

"Isabel!" Teague called. I stopped and turned to him, my hand on the handle. "Don't go in there for a while."

He nodded to the room where he'd left his son. "Why not?" I asked.

Before Teague descended the gangplank to boar his own ship he smiled again and said, quite simply, "He's staying in there until he's thought about what he's done."

Review? Ta very muchly :)

LV
XX