Rosie just held Will’s hand and ran, the burn in her shoulder hardly registering as they tripped and dragged each other through bodies and pirates and sailors all mixed up, some still attempting to resolve what had become personal. “Free passage to anyone that wants it on the Pearl!” Gibbs shouted as he swung over. A pirate through and through, he was always on the look out for more men that would decide to become free, a question of opportunity more than career choice for the most part. Waves of men and women like flying monkeys risked life and limb to cross the unpredictable gap to the Black Pearl from the Valiant, which was listing badly now, wrong side to the waves that pounded her side. Heavy already in the water, she spun without control, cursed with the cries of sailors who now dropped their swords to save their lives. Back on the Pearl Will ran the length of the ship to sever the ropes that would tie their fate to that of the frigate.

“Rosie! Gibbs! Hold her steady!” Will was at the helm now, spinning the wheel to turn her round, the forrad of the ship thin into the waves. Rosie bent her head and heaved ropes, slipping in the water that was threatening to overtake them. She dared not look back, dared not see if the Valiant was going under, nor to look if they were being followed out of the bay by the Chamada. She could feel her heart pumping hard, a well in her eyes that was for Mary, but Rosie gritted her teeth and pulled harder still. He needed her now, and she could do that.

A huge thunder cracked through the air, and Will turned to see plumes of dust and smoke rise from Port Royal, his squinting eyes watched for a second or two as cliffs tumbled into the sea. “Jack, where are you? You can’t fall behind,” his mumble was lost in the next lurch of the ship and Will searched the waves for something…anything. “I have to go back for them!!” Will bellowed across the deck, and Gibbs, well, he knew better than to assume anything but the hardest, most foolhardy and bravest plan was the one that they would be following.

“Aye Captain!” A huge wave coming the opposite way, unnatural and yet following the movement of the earth herself, nearly dragged them under as they turned, heading the wrong way into chaos. From where they stood watching on the deck it stole the breath—a darkness rising over the earth, the battlements slipping like decks of cards off a table, and the town crumbling.

“Ship ahoy!!” from precarious up on the crows nest a shout pulled their eyes to across the bay where, with a cry, Rosie spotted the Chamada limping from a few too many holes but now letting her shape and her sails carry her away and out to sea, and the Fearless choosing to take its chances back in the falling port. Oh thank God. Thank God. Relief and renewed strength flowed through her arms as she glanced to Will, the whole of his body straining with the force of “have to.” None of them even considered arguing, he was the captain, and if the sailors that had abandoned the Valiant thought otherwise they never said, perhaps this was their first glimpse of what it meant to be a pirate. The fate of the Valiant’s captain, it seemed, had been decided by the sea, the posthumous tribute in The Times perhaps best not left to Peawick who was right then clinging to a piece of wood and already preparing the speech of his life, “The Folly of Inherited Rank.” Times a changing indeed.

“Gibbs!! Turn starboard!” A sickening lurch took their stomachs before they could see where Will pointed to a small fishing boat thrown about like a leaf in a tornado. “Bring us about NOW!” The Pearl spun on a ha’penny and took waves of water from Amphitrite herself, but they flew nonetheless to where the L'huître Sauvage tossed, ropes already trailing over the side of the ship. “Steady!! She will crush under the hull,” Will shouted and held the wheel, his hands aching now from the strain on his muscles, but just a while longer, to keep her steady.

Moments passed when no one took a breath, least of all Kate at the bottom of a thin ladder and with the black of the Pearl towering and swaying above her, her hands grasping for the waterlogged ropes. There was no time…no time to be anything but brave, and she leapt from the edge of the fishing boat, praying that she could hold on. But this was different from her nightmare—this time Jack was behind her, he would rather sink with her than let her fall alone, and she scrambled up the side, hands pulling her over the edge and to safety. Well that might have been an exaggeration; there was no time for embraces, no time for anything except getting out of there. Jack simply nodded to his First Mate and took the wheel, “Foolish, Turner...Brilliant but foolish!” before a booming wave reminded them of exactly that.

The battle to stay afloat took up everything as the water raged and the ground shifted underneath. It might have been hours, or days, Rosie couldn’t tell, all she knew was that they weren’t yet drowned. Tremors that could still be felt in the tide kept them glued to their posts as the day turned pink, and they finally neared the home shores of Tortuga. It seemed that hands were stuck to ropes, unwilling to relinquish their hold on the Pearl, the thing that had delivered them.

Rosie swayed against Will, the pain of her shoulder finally remembered. “You need that bound,” his voice was soft again and kissing her ear with its lilt, “Mary will string me up for sure.” Rosie grinned slowly and watched him undo his shirt and rip through cotton that offered no resistance.

“Not that I am complaining, but you are a little underdressed wouldn’t you say?”

He winked, a smile that made her giggle, “Aye, well seems that never did me any harm! Maybe Mary will go easy on me…”

Christ, he would make her cry in a minute. Will kissed her head, his hands gently pulling away the cloth that stuck to her with blood, sweat, and salt, and he bound her wound tight with fingers that could do anything it seemed. Her aching bones and muscles gave themselves up to him, and Rosie lay back against his chest to let time slip by.

“Sparrow! You fish fucker! LOOK at my ship!” Anne had guessed where he would head, that was if he was still alive, and she shouted the orders to bring the Chamada alongside. Ropes and planks flew across and the two ships were moored together. Anne was first over the gangplank, but her fearsome temper softened, if she really admitted the truth to herself, by an uncharacteristic warmth in her heart to see Jack was still standing at the helm of the Pearl, a warmth however that he would have to guess at. “And where the hell is the crew you promised me?”

Jack smiled and descended the steps of the quarterdeck. “Let me say what a pleasure it is to see you alive and well, Anne, my dear. I believe I have fulfilled my debt,” he gestured as a dozen or so women, still dressed for the Faithful Bride but having run foul of the navy and the sea in the meantime, emerged from the ranks of pirates. “Tortuga’s finest, luv, and I am sure with exactly the qualities you require since I believe Rosie here did the interviewing, as it were…Now, I propose to take my crew into port for a well-earned night of debauchery and anything else we can find. It would appear that the map just changed… and we may need to drink to new times.”

Mary stood still as women brushed past her to board the Chamada, her heart and her breath hammering as she looked up to take in Rosie’s face. Will Turner was close, and she could tell he had been closer, just something in the way his body still moved around her lover. She had known he would be. In the seconds when she was still wondering if she had lost Rosie to another First Mate’s familiar hands, those which couldn’t decide whether to stroke, caress, or hold on so tight they might just break, and a mouth that didn’t know whether to kiss, suck, or speak, Rosie descended on her, “Oh Jesus, Mary! I thought you might have drowned!”

Mary threw her head back with a gentle laugh, surrendering her neck and her face to the warmth of Rosie’s happiness. “What, and leave you with Will Turner for company?! Rosie, now I wouldn’t do that to yer love…Look at him!” Their two pairs of eyes turned to peruse a shirtless and bloodied Will Turner, his hair whipped by the salt and the sea, his perfect hips promising heat and hard and gasping breath, and they may both have sighed. Anne’s call brought them back round, and with a kiss that was never goodbye, Rosie stood on her toes to touch his face, a beginning of a frown between her eyes.

Will shook his head, “Don’t Rosie, just remember that bit about my cock,” he was laughing a bit, “that was the important part.”

She grinned, “As if I would forget.” Strong arms pulled her close, and Rosie crooked her head into Mary’s shoulder to walk back to the Chamada do Siren with a tingle in her lips and her belly already that said “welcome home.”

The gangplanks pulled back, Anne saluted in her own way with a curse that made Jack smile and, if not count the days till he was next sworn at, then at least glad that he still had some company on the water. Will took a breath and watched the Chamada sail, there wasn’t a map to follow here, just feelings that came whether you wanted them or not, and he bent down to scritch the back of Xiao who seemed determined to curl around his legs. “Just you and I then, cat...at least until we hit land,” a wry smile and he turned back to the sails. There was rarely a truer word spoken.

Kate woke the next morning to find Jack missing from their bed. In the night just passed he had toasted her a thousand times and kissed her many more. He had made Tortuga hers too, surrounded her with men and women who had not met her like, but who now knew what she was and had drunk to her health at the expense of theirs. She didn’t have to be the same, she just had to be her—Kate Archer, lawyer and representative of those who couldn’t afford her. It made her smile as she pulled a sheet around her to step out onto the balcony overlooking the sea, a sea that had finally soothed and found its level again, lapping gently at the harbour wall.

“Was waiting for you, luv.”

She would never stop pinching herself that he was hers. Smiling she let his hands catch her hips and pull her down onto his so they could both see the grey horizon. “I need to go home, Jack, there is work for me to do. You too with Port Royal gone, you will have to travel further a field,” she swallowed hard as he pulled her hair back to kiss her neck.

“Has piracy been elevated to a method of employment while I was sleeping?” He was smiling into his kisses now, it was really quite distracting and her protests didn’t stop him. “Though it would appear, luv, that at the very least it just became a more serious affair. Only the most intrepid, the most daring, and the most foolish will have a chance,” he sucked harder on her neck, a moan she hadn’t meant to be so loud escaped her lips.

“And the most desirable…don’t forget that!”

“I would say that I have that at the forefront of my mind.” His nimble fingers slipped under her cotton sheet, “Though with Turner in the crew we have the foolishness covered too.” Jack grinned, unable to cover up the swell of pride, confidence, and grace that pulled those two men together.

“He saved our lives!” Kate was practically purring.

“Aye he did, just don’t tell the whelp, lest he get ideas about inheriting my cabin.” Jack licked his way down to her collarbone, “Now what were you saying about going home?” and Kate shifted to let him know just where that was.

Apparently some things don’t ever change, even if the mountains crumble to the sea.

The End

Home