It was Elizabeth who asked. "Where's Jack?"

The question paralyzed Joanna. She was already trembling hard enough to rock the boat. When she opened her mouth to answer, she choked, tasting bile.

Elizabeth's mien was stony and cool. She knows, Joanna thought with feverish clarity. Of course Elizabeth knew -- it was from her Joanna had stolen the handcuffs. It's not a choice, Joanna had proclaimed, sidling closer to Elizabeth and her prize. You can't.

Joanna managed to rasp a reply. "He's staying behind." As reality caught up to her, her voice was strangled into a whisper. "To give us a chance."

Her vision went blurry. Joanna buried her face in her hands, sucking deep breaths. She felt unhinged, unreal, like a ghost, floating across the waves and occasionally finding the company of five pirates, a governor's daughter, and Will Turner.

Will Turner. Joanna squeezed her eyes shut. In a brief, hot flash, she hated Will, despised him, for forcing her hand. Of course I would choose you, she screamed into the dark recesses of her mind.

(Of course she would choose her little brother.)

At her side, Elizabeth ordered sharply for the boys to start rowing. Her hand found the small of Joanna's back, rubbing small, clement circles.

...

The image of the Black Pearl, dipping beneath Persian blue waves, slow and magnificent, would remain imprinted on the backs of Joanna's eyelids until the day she died.

As she watched, burning eyes wide through the gaps between her fingers, she wondered why this murder seemed to clamp around her ribs and squeeze. Joanna had killed people; her faithful, gold-embedded dao had pierced the bellies of many unfortunate men. She had raided ships and looted establishments. She had stopped hearts.

But Joanna had never killed Jack Sparrow.

Captain Jack Sparrow. Joanna's lips curled into a smile, but it quickly flickered out.

Joanna looked up and found the eyes of Elizabeth Swann. They exchanged a glance that lasted too long, recognizing themselves in each other -- two women who could kill Jack Sparrow.

...

Hours later, Joanna blinked, startled by cool hands curling her fingers around a warm mug. Her tired, aching eyes flicked upward, finding the eerie visage of Tia Dalma.

"Against de cold, and de sorrow," murmured the witch. Her eyes glimmered knowingly. Surely, I'm not that transparent, Joanna weakly assured herself. Surely the entire room could not perceive her guilt.

Thunk. Will's knife sank sharply into wood, over and over. Thunk. He gazed pensively into the thin, jagged wounds the blade left in Tia Dalma's table. Joanna wondered what he was mourning -- Jack or Davy Jones' heart or the Black Pearl.

"'Tis a shame," Tia said sagaciously, circling to face Will. "I know you be thinking, with de Pearl, you could have caught the devil an' wrestled free your father's soul."

Will spared her an upward glance, gaze flickering dubiously. "Doesn't matter now. The Pearl's gone...along with her captain." Thunk. The knife struck wood once more.

Joanna eyed him, amending her thinking. Perhaps Will felt more than one loss.

"Aye. An' already the world seems a bit less bright," said Gibbs. He was slumped in the open, softly-glowing doorway, framed by the mourning candles peppering the swamp.

The flickering spots of light, held aloft by somber, shadow-cloaked men and women, had accompanied the Pearls' quiet journey to Tia Dalma's hut. Tia had known, long before Gibbs knocked on her door to confirm it, that Jack Sparrow was dead.

"He fooled us all, right to the very end," Gibbs continued. The dagger of guilt twisted when Joanna looked at him; of them all, Gibbs had known Jack the longest. Speculation could not live up to what harrowing adventures they must have shared. "But I guess that honest streak o' his finally won out."

Joanna buried her face in her mug, breathing in the heady aroma of bitter tea. An honest streak, she mused. A wan smile curled her mouth. Jack wouldn't know an honest streak if one bit his nose.

Jack knew cunning and kindness and loyalty, and Joanna had fed him to a kraken.

"You're developing a habit," Jack had said, flexing his hand within the manacle. When the chains jangled, he smiled.

Joanna shook her head; the single gold earring slapped her cheek. "Maybe -- maybe I just don't care that much about you," she choked out, repulsed by how the words tasted. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, afraid of how Jack would look, hearing his abuse parroted back. "It's not after the ship -- it's after you. If you came with us, you'd...you'd kill us, Jack."

Joanna felt his gaze, heavy like her heart. He said, "It's what's right."

"You're unbelievable, talking about what's right," Joanna grit out. She kissed him once, hard and fast. Jack's unbound hand curled around her wrist -- a shackle all on its own.

But when Joanna broke away, Jack's fingers unwound, leaving her free. She found it within herself to speak softly. "Thank you, Jack."

"And you," Jack returned quietly.

Jack had his pistol, he had his sword -- Joanna had expected either to find the center of her back as she left him. But here she sat, sipping hot tea and pretending she hadn't killed the Pirate Lord of the Caribbean.

Mug raised high in a toast, Ragetti tearfully announced, "Never another like Cap'n Jack!"

"He was a gentleman o' fortune, he was," Pintel mournfully agreed.

"A good friend," Gibbs reflected.

Marty piped up, "A good captain!"

Will and Elizabeth exchanged a glance. Together, they pronounced, "A good man."

"Awk!" Even Cotton's parrot had something to say. Looking morose, Cotton stroked his fingers over the bird's colorful head.

Joanna, pale and listless, was left.

She could not confine Jack to a handful of words. He was paragraphs, chapters, and novels; he was winding words in swirling, bold-faced font; he was the secrets between the lines.

Joanna concluded in a voice that shook, "He was something, alright."

Tia Dalma nodded once, her sibylline figure a pillar amidst their grief. Joanna felt compelled to glance at her. When she did, she found Tia's dark and steely eyes locked on her own.

"If dere was a way," Tia began in her peculiar teasing way. Her gaze swiveled to regard the room at large, but Joanna felt the witch spoke only to her. "to bring back Witty Jack. Would ye do it?"

A rush of unbridled hope crashed over Joanna before she clenched her jaw, biting back flames. How dare you, she seethed. How dare you dangle that in front of my nose?

Her lips parted, to either curse Tia a blue streak or to vow of course, but Gibbs beat her to speaking.

"Aye." He said it like a challenge.

"Aye," Pintel jumped to agree, bobbing his head.

Ragetti followed seriously: "Aye."

"Awwwk! Aye!" Concurred Cotton and his bird.

"Aye!" Marty professed.

"Yes," Elizabeth said with quiet fervor. At her side, Will solemnly nodded.

Stunned at the candor of her companions, Joanna almost forgot to say her piece. It tumbled out: "Of course," she averred. "Of course."

Tia's precipitate gaze slid over her. She smiled; candlelight danced off of her silver teeth.

"Very well, den," she whispered, pleased. "But if you are to brave de weird an' haunted shores at World's End, then...you shall need a captain who knows those waters."

Tia benevolently swept her arm in the direction of the staircase; at the same time, the sound of the ocean seemed to echo through the cabin. Then, footsteps came, thumping with the tough soles of well-worn boots.

Before Joanna knew it, she was on her feet, watching with shock as a hated figure descended the stairs. Her jaw joined the other seven hitting the floor.

"Tell me," said Barbossa. With a shit-eating grin, he sank his teeth into a bright green apple. As the juices trailed into his manky beard, Jack the Monkey hollered from his shoulder. "What's become of my ship?"

Joanna's forehead fell to rest in her open palms. Ah, karma. Such a bitch.