If you've come here looking for updates, please read the new Author's Note at the bottom :)

I couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything, couldn't feel anything.

For a moment, it was like I didn't exist.

And then everything- sound, sight, smell- came rushing towards me at once. Everything around me was a blur of colour and noise. The first thing that I became sure of was the pain in my back and chest, and the difficulty I was having breathing. Then I remembered the bullet from Blackbeard's gun, which was now lodged in my right lung. Jack's face came in to focus out of the hazy background. He cradled my head in his arms. I could feel him shaking. I writhed involuntarily on the ground. The pain was almost unbearable. I coughed as fluid filled my lung. I gasped in more air, but it was difficult and made an unsettling rasping sound. Fear gripped me. Jack's eyes locked on mine.

He was scared too.

"Belle… Belle, it's alright… look at me. Look at me." I tried to, but it was really hard. I had to move to cough up blood.

"Jack…" I said when I found the strength to speak. His trembling hands wiped the blood from my mouth.

"It's alright, love. I'm here, it's alright," he was trying his best to sound soothing, but I could see what this was doing to him.

"Jack!" I reached up and put my hand on his cheek. "The baby…." It was all I could think of. "Jack, the baby!"

Isaacio loomed over us and then crouched down to Jack's level. He put a hand on his shoulder. His eyes were full of a great sorrow and understanding. Jack tore his eyes away from mine. "We can still save the baby," Isaacio told him. Jack looked at me, helpless and afraid.

"Yes!" I said immediately. "Yes, please! Isaccio, please!"

He nodded at me, but his expression was solemn. He straightened up and walked away. I tried to lie back and relax, safe in the knowledge that my baby would make it through this even if I didn't, but the wound to my lung and my breathing difficulty made it too hard to lie still. Nyssa's previous promise that I was in safe hands gave me something to cling to. I was grateful that Jack never once let go of me, no matter how violently the pain cause me to twist. I felt cold, horribly cold. Isaacio returned and knelt down opposite Jack. He held something to my lips, but at that moment my lungs filled with blood again.

"You need to drink this, Isabel," Isaacio said gently, placing a hand on my back to help hold me up. I did as I was told and felt my heartbeat slow almost immediately. This slowed the blood that was filling up my lungs and gushing out of the gunshot wound to a trickle. My breathing eased up a little. I looked back to Isaacio as the last of the sour liquid drained from the cup. He glanced briefly at Jack; it was a look that Jack did not return. He was too focussed on me to notice. Isaacio looked grim, but I was already at peace with what I thought I knew was coming. "It will slow the bleeding and eventually close the wound… but… by then with the amount of blood you've lost… I don't think you'll… It will only give us enough time to deliver the babies."

I nodded to show I understood. Then something occurred to me. "Wait… babies?" I repeated. "As in… plural?"

Isaacio smiled, "You're carrying twins. Didn't you know?"

"No," I shook my head, feeling myself smile through the pain. "… but how did you?"

"We just know these things," he shrugged. "I forget that others don't sometimes. It's been a long time since we've had people like you here."

He stood up and walked away again. My slow heartbeat was making me feel drowsy. I allowed my head to relax back on to Jack's lap. He looked down at me helplessly. "You're going to be alright, love. You will."

I'm not sure who he was trying to convince- me or himself. Either way, it wasn't working. My hand felt heavy as I lifted it up and placed it on his cheek. Everything I wanted to tell him, I tried to it with my eyes. His were so lost, confused, scared. His warm hand ran up my arm and covered mine. He rubbed it soothingly and then our fingers intertwined. He lifted my hand away briefly, closed his eyes and kissed it. "You'll be fine," his voice was barely a whisper. His eyes stayed shut, his face crumpled with the grief caused by the knowledge that his words were nothing but hollow lies. "You will be."

His braking heart broke mine.

"Jack," I said softly. "So will you."

He opened his eyes; his tears fell freely as he shook his head. "No, love," his voice was thick with sorrow. His trembling lips met with my forehead. A few of his tears splashed on to my face and ran down to mingle with my own. "Not without you…" I pulled his lips to mine and kissed him fiercely, just in case it was the last time.

"Isabel." Isaacio returned. Jack and I broke apart. Isaacio looked at us apologetically, "I'm sorry… but we don't have much time." He passed me a handful of purple petals that had been dipped in something that glittered and shimmered, but did not smell pleasant. "You need to eat this," he told me. I nodded and raised it all to my lips. I paused. "It won't be pleasant from here on in," he warned me. I nodded again and put all the petals in at once, chewed and swallowed as quickly as possible. It was vile. Truly vile. I wanted to spit it back out again. I retched automatically, but managed to keep it down.

The pain started immediately and it was unlike any other physical pain I had ever experience in my life before. It was excruciating and buried deep within me, seemingly unreachable and incurable. The second it started I cried out and tried to clutch at wherever the pain was, in a vain attempt to dull it. The pain relaxed for a few seconds, but I was ready for it to come back. And it did. Worse than before and longer lasting. Nyssa appeared, leaning over Isaacio's shoulder. "Try to relax," she said gently.

"Are… you… JOKING?!" I panted between contractions. My grip on Jack's hand tightened. Isaacio and Nyssa moved down to my legs, to help guide me through it. Gibbs appeared from nowhere and took my other hand. I was so grateful I almost cried. I probably would have done, but there were already tears in my eyes. My body seemed to go into a state of shock where all I knew was pain. It clogged up all my senses. All I could see, smell, hear, taste and feel was pain. Screaming didn't ease what I was experiencing or make it much easier, but I felt like if I didn't scream then I would explode.

It seemed never-ending. I could have been lying there for hours, days, weeks for all I knew. And it intensified with every contraction of my muscles. It was so excruciating that I completely forgot what it felt like not to be in pain.

"Ok, Isabel," Nyssa said eventually as sweat stung my eyes. "You can start pushing now."

I did as I was told and the pain changed. It felt like a sharp bolt of lightning shooting through my whole body. Isaacio kept reminding me to breathe, but this was difficult and the only relief it offered me was a pain slightly duller than the one I was already feeling. The urge to push the first baby out of me was overwhelming, even though it seemed to do nothing but make the pain worse. I was so sore, so tired.

"Push!" Nyssa said again. "Harder."

I did it, even though it felt impossible. Isaacio smiled encouragingly. Jack kissed my hand. I noticed that my knuckles were white. I pushed my hardest. I felt a tiny little bit of progress, which encouraged me to keep going until I felt a huge relief and heard a baby start to cry.

Suddenly, it all seemed worth it.

"It's a boy," Nyssa held him up for us to see. I heard Jack gasp. He looked at me with wide, shiny eyes.

"A boy… Isabel…" he almost choked on his words. "We have a son." Tears sprang into his eyes and he had to wipe them away with his sleeve. "Can I hold him?" he whispered.

"In a moment," Nyssa nodded. She disappeared for a second and came back with him wrapped in a clean, white shawl. She passed him slowly to Jack. Jack held him as if he was the most precious thing in the whole world. Which, in a way… he was.

"Look, Belle…" he whispered, mesmerised. "Look, how small he is… look." My baby boy looked at his dad. Jack's smile widened. "He has your eyes… Belle… your beautiful blue eyes."

I smiled, unable to speak. I wanted nothing more than to hold my baby and kiss my husband, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not when I knew that I would never see this little boy… my little boy… grow up. I saw my blood on Jack's hand and realised that the blood flowing from the wound on my back was steadily increasing. I became aware of how weak I was.

"Isaacio…" I said with urgency. He understood immediately what was wrong.

"Nyssa," he barked. "We don't have much time."

She took the baby from Jack. The blissful look on his face dissolved in to panic. "Wait… where are you taking him?"

"It's okay," she said soothingly. "He'll be safe. I'll look after him. We just need to keep him out of the way."

Jack looked deeply mistrustful, but my scream as the pain returned distracted him completely. I thought that this one was slightly easier, but I couldn't be sure. I was feeling so weak, so tired, so exhausted that the pain hardly registered with me.

I could already feel myself beginning to drift away.

I was surrounded by my own blood. There was so much of it. I was so tired, but I carried on. Thoughts of Jack and our family's wellbeing were the only thing that kept me going, but I was getting drowsy. Getting numb.

"A girl," Nyssa said. For a moment I smiled, but something about her voice stopped me. Her tone was grave. Jack frowned and I realised something.

She wasn't crying.

"No…" I said, my voice was barely a whisper. "No…" Jack's arms wrapped around me.

"I'm sorry," Isaacio said sincerely as he held my daughter's still body in his arms.

My baby was dead.

In the half-conscious stage I was slipping in to I heard a voice I hoped I would never hear again. That infuriating one from the maze.

"Seventeen heartbeats beating loud and steady
Little do they know one of them's dead already."

All this time… My darling little girl had been dead all this time.

I lay back. The strength left every muscle in my body so that I couldn't even feel them anymore. The light began to fade from around me.

"Isabel!" Jack shouted. "Stay with me, darlin'… Please… don't leave me." I didn't have the strength to reply. His wild eyes looked around for help. I studied his face and felt calm. He couldn't keep his eyes away from me for long.

"Isaacio!" Gibbs shouted.

"The wound's closing, but… she's lost too much blood. I'm so sorry," was the reply I had been expecting. He'd prepared me for it.

Everything sounded quieter than it should.

"DO SOMETHING!" Jack screamed at Isaacio in desperation. His tears were falling thick and fast. I wanted to comfort him, to help him and heal him, but I didn't even have the strength to keep my eyes open for much longer.

"There's nothing we can do," Isaacio walked away. It was so final.

"No…" Jack whimpered, gently touching my face and rocking me slightly. "No… Belle, hold on… you can't… I don't… I need you…."

I took a deep and painful breath, summoning the last of my remaining strength. "Jack," I whispered, but that was as far as I got before my eyes shut and I slipped away. The light vanished from everything and all sound stopped completely. I could feel my conscious thoughts, everything I was, disintegrating. It was as if my conscious being was breaking up and drifting away, like ashes scattered in the wind.

No time for one last "I love you."

Not even time for a short farewell.

I lay still in my husband's arms as Jack dissolved into his grief.

So... I've been confused about some reviews on here asking me to update and then I realized that I hadn't actually put anything here for people who were reading my stories after they'd been completed to say that YES THERE IS A SEQUEL. IT IS CALLED DEAD MEN TELL TALES AND YOU CAN FIND IT ON MY PAGE.

I am so sorry for the confusion I think I've caused. I had originally posted something right at the end as a separate chapter explaining my decision while I was finishing up plans for Dead Men Tell Tales for the people who were following it as I published it. I never really thought that other people would bother going back over it. So, Thank You. And Sorry again!

Lots of love,

LV xx