She was on deck again, watching the sea. The smooth wood swayed drunkenly under her feet, but she hardly noticed. It had been so long since land, so long drifting on the ocean that she could scarcely remember anything different. Here there were no tea parties, no new dresses, no safe harbor--there were only carefully darned britches and shirt and the taste of salt and rot in everything she ate. She didn't belong here. She had never belonged here. This was Jack's world, one that she had only ever been a guest in.

So absorbed was she in her contemplation that she didn't even know how long Will had been there before she registered his presence. He was leaning on the rail, watching her watch the sea. As always since that day with the Kraken, he stood just out of arm's length. She didn't know how much he had seen but from his careful, ever-so-polite avoidance, it had been enough.

"Gibbs has our bearings," he said softly.

She gave him the brightest smile she could manage. "Oh? That's wonderful!"

One corner of his mouth turned up just a little, and something squeezed painfully in her chest. Then his eyes slid past her, toward the horizon. "As much as anyone can get the bearings for the end of the world, anyway."

It didn't have the sound of a joke, but she laughed nevertheless. "Do you really think he's out there, somewhere?"

Will shrugged. "I wish I knew. Tia Dalma seemed so certain..."

The rush of fury surprised her, and she gave voice to it without thinking. "Oh, aye, and she seemed quite certain about foisting Barbossa off on us as Captain, and look where that left us! She's a traitor or a fool, or both, and I won't be as big a bloody fool as Jack was, to trust her!"

She snapped her lips shut on the rest of it. Will was watching her with that sad, knowing smile that was as close as his gentle soul could come to condemnation. Finally he said softly, "I think neither of us has a clean enough conscience to say aught about either of them, anymore."

She cast her eyes down, and an image of that day arose, unbidden, to her mind--Jack's lips, warm and chapped, the taste of salt and gunpowder and the resigned laughter in his eyes--"Pirate."--and she had to choke back a sob.

When she looked up, all she could see of Will was his retreating back.