A Pirate's Life for Me

Chapter 26: Kraken

It was silent in the longboat as the group rowed their way back to the Black Pearl.

Elizabeth was nursing the unconscious Will, stroking his hair back gently as his head rested in her lap while Annalise sat opposite her sister. Jack was settled beside Annalise, looking a little confused as to how he'd ended up beside the darker-haired twin. But to his relief and joint dismay, Annalise ignored him completely while Pintel and Ragetti rowed and bickered once more.

"You're pulling too hard!"

"You aren't pulling hard enough!"

Movement caught the corner of her eye and Annalise turned her gaze from the island where they had abandoned Norrington to watch as Will's dark eyes fluttered open at last.

Elizabeth gave her fiance a small smile as his eyes focused on her, but Annalise grimaced when the first words to come out of Will's mouth were, "What happened to the chest?"

"Norrington took it to draw them off." Elizabeth answered softly.

Will's expression morphed into one of shock, but before he had time to process it they had finally drawn up beside the Pearl.

"Ladies first." Jack bowed as a rope ladder came rattling down to hang on the side of the ship, the bottom rung stopping just above their long-boat.

Annalise went first as Elizabeth helped Will sit up, and Gibbs - who had been waiting at the top - helped the young woman aboard. The brunette then stayed to help Gibbs help her sister and then Will climb aboard. She also helped Ragetti climb over the ship's railing (there was something sweet inside the bumbling pirate that made her relent) but Annalise turned and walked away when Jack climbed aboard. She didn't really want to help Pintel, who came up behind Jack, anyway.

Will wandered off toward the rear of the ship, still a little disoriented after the blow to his head and his confidence at losing the chest after all. But instead of following him as Annalise had expected her sister to do, Elizabeth pulled Annalise to the side out of earshot from all the others.

"I didn't know you were still wearing that." She murmured, nodding at Annalise's neck.

Annalise looked down to see the sparrow pendant Jack had given her what felt like eons ago hanging out from where she usually kept it tucked inside her shirt. It glinted now in the sun from where it was nestled over her chest, and Annalise quickly clutched the pendant and tucked it back into her shirt.

"When did it fall out?" She asked quickly, glancing at her sister who looked back at her with concerned brown eyes.

"I noticed it on the beach earlier, after Will came back." She replied softly. "I think it may have slipped out when we were pulling up the chest."

Annalise turned her head away and Elizabeth's brows furrowed.

"You still care for him."

It wasn't a question and Elizabeth grasped her sister's arm as she urged, "Lisa... he's a scoundrel."

"He's also a good man." Annalise answered softly.

Elizabeth gave her a skeptical look and she protested, "You can't seriously believe that. Lisa, he's not good enough for you."

"Isn't that what father used to imply about Will?" Annalise returned.

Elizabeth bit her lip unhappily, but Annalise pushed her sister gently away and she walked off. She knew Elizabeth was simply worried for her, possibly because her sister could all too easily understand and was scared of Jack's charm (Annalise wasn't blind; her sister was both repulsed and attracted to Jack the way Annalise had been, she could see it as clearly as the sun in the day). And sometimes, Annalise did think maybe she was walking toward the edge of a plank - that she was on a path that would result in a drop to her doom. But...