Author's Note: I am so so sorry for this blow-by-blow scene. I know it's really similar to the film, but since the characters' motives were different, I sort of had to include it all to make the story complete. I hope I've made it up to you by giving you little peeks into the characters' real thoughts.

26.

"No reason to fret!" the bald one said lightly as he dragged Will through the cavern towards the cursed chest, "It's just a prick of the finger, a few drops of blood."
"No mistakes this time." a voice barked from behind them, belonging to an equally repulsive individual with a menacing grin, "He's only half-Turner. We spill it all!"

"Guess there is reason to fret." the stupidest of the stupid duo muttered with a chuckle.

Will was pushed and pulled, and pushed a bit more, and finally thrust towards Barbossa the blackguard. The wrinkled old criminal beamed at him with ratty yellowed eyes, and promptly bent him over the chest of golden coins with surprising force.

A knife was pressed to his throat.

"Um," Will ventured, trying to be helpful, "perhaps you could try a prick of the finger first?"
"Shut yer filthy mouth." the ruffian spat back at him.

Will was insulted. He hadn't had the chance to brush his teeth in a while, but he was certain that his mouth was physically and metaphorically a lot more hygenic than any of these rascals'.

He didn't have a chance to protest, however, for at that moment he noticed Jack Sparrow himself picking his way through the crowd, not a far way off.

"Begun by blood!" Barbossa bellowed, oblivious to the situation.
"Excuse me." came Jack's mockingly polite tone.

Will could honestly say he had never been so glad to hear that voice before.
Correction - he had never actually been glad to hear that voice before.

"By blood un -"
"Jack!" Will cried, thinking it was about time his about-to-be murderer took notice, and stopped trying to murder him.

The knife did, indeed, slacken a little at his throat, and Barbossa's body went similarly limp.

"S'not possible." he wheezed.
"Not probable."

Jack had nearly reached them. He had the most smug look on his stupid face.
Will wanted to punch it, despite the fact that it was currently postponing his death.

"Where is Miss Swann?" he asked irritably.

Since he had learned of the death of his father, his only silver lining to this entire trip had become her safety, and the paying of his great debt to her father the Governor.
If Jack had gone and spoilt that for him too, it would be more than he could bear.

He reminded himself to violently attack Sparrow later, for misleading him to think that his late parent had still had breath in his lungs.

Talk about false bribery.

"She's safe, she's safe." Jack waved away William's enquiry as though it were a passing comment upon the weather.
However, his overly-aloof expression told Will there was a bit more to it.

"What on earth has been going on since we, er, left you last?"
"Oh, you know. Sea turtles and all that. We used 'Lizabeth's hair for the raft this time. She's bald as an eagle. Looks bloody brilliant. She's all set to marry that Commadore fella."

Yes, indeed. The aloofness was getting more intense, and at the same Jack's eyebrows were drawing closer and closer together, until they slanted hawkishly over his shadowed eyes.

"Shut up! You're next." Barbossa interrupted, to Jack's infinite gratitude.
He bent to press the knife against Will's jugular once again, with a leering determined sneer.

"You don't - want to be doing that, mate." Sparrow's voice, once again, interrupted.
Will breathed yet another sigh of relief.

"No, I really think I do." the pirate snapped back.
"... Your funeral."

Jack was an expert in irritating comments.
Barbossa and Will felt this mutually.

"Why don't I want to be doing it?"
"Well, because -" Sparrow pushed an obnoxious pirate's arm off his shoulder, "because the HMS Dauntless, pride of the Royal Navy, is floating just offshore. Waiting for you."

"I know why we're here." Murtogg emphasised for Mullroy's benefit, "I mean why aren't we doing what it was, what Mr. Sparrow said we should do? With the cannons and all, back at the Dauntless?"

"Because it was Mr. Sparrow who said it." the Commodore said loudly from the head of the longboat.

A horrific thought suddenly occurred to Murtogg.
"You think he wasn't telling the truth?"

"Just hear me out, mate." Jack drawled in an overly-confident, soothing tone that would have fooled almost any man but Barbossa, "You order your men to row out to the Dauntless. They do what they do best. Robert's your Uncle, Fannie's your Aunt, there you are with two ships. The makings of your very own fleet. 'Course you'll take the grandest as your flagship, and who's to argue? But what of the Pearl? Name me Captain, I'll sail under your colors, I'll give you ten percent of me plunder and you get to introduce yourself as - Commodore Barbossa. Savvy?"

William rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.
So, Jack was at the peak of his expedition. He was finally about to get his ship back.
And a fat lot of good it had done all the rest of them.

Bloody pirates.

"I s'pose in exchange, you want me not to kill the whelp." Barbossa interjected suspiciously.

"No, no, not at all! By all means, kill the whelp! Just not yet."
Jack was giving Will a very meaningful glance.

"Wait to lift the curse until the opportune moment. For instance -" Jack scooped up a handful of the glittering coins, "after you've killed Norrington's men. Every - last - one."

William looked and re-looked at Jack's hand. He had only dropped three coins. Hadn't he picked up a good handful?
Sure enough, there was a slight glint of gold, where a hidden piece still belonged - stolen - to the wily Captain.
The words opportune moment clicked into place very suddenly.

And as much as he didn't like the sound of Jack's opportune moments, it may be the only way to get out of here alive.

As he finally cottoned on he sprang into verbal action. "You've been planning this from the beginning! Ever since you learned my name!"

"Err. Yeah."

"I want fifty percent of your plunder." Barbossa piped up.
"Fifteen." Jack retorted, offended.
"Forty."
"Twenty-five. And I'll buy you the hat. A really big one... Commodore."

He had touched Barbossa's weak spot. The mention of hats sealed the deal.
"We have an accord."
They shook hands, as though they were halfway decent chaps who were about to keep their word.

"All hands to the boats!"
Jack paused, and glanced at his now-comrade. "Apologies. You give the orders."

"Gents!" the wily seadog grinned, "take a walk."
"... Not to the boats?"

Bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger it all.

He had intended to at least give the navy a fighting chance of injuring the bloody pirates before he lifted the curse.
At this rate, his entire efforts to catch his enemies off guard with a sudden dose of mortality would be wasted, and everybody aboard the Dauntless would be dead.

Everybody including her.

He glanced at Will, who had been released from Barbossa's vice-like grip.
The whelp gave him a cold, sarcastic stare.

Jack simpered back at him, simultaneously trying to conceal his embarrassment about his clever plan backfiring, his keen concern for Lizzie, and his embarrassment about his keen concern.

It wasn't working. Will may have been slow on the uptake about opportune moments, but he was certainly on the ball when it came to relating to people's emotions. It seemed to be his area of expertise.

Jack wondered that he hadn't been the one to woo Elizabeth yet. He would definitely have done a much smoother job of it.