"Rise and shine!" Ward yelled early the next morning. His whole crew, and Skye, groggily climbed out of their small huts and gathered around Ward.

"We have a treasure to find today! So I want everyone to be as sharp as a tack and keep lookout for any other pirates trying to get their hands on the princess."

The crew voiced their agreement and Ward hopped down off of the log he was standing on and walked to Skye, "just stick with me princess and you should be fine."

She smirked, "don't worry, I was planning on it."

He flashed her a flirty smirk, "good."

She smiled as she walked over to join the pirates who were busy trying to wake themselves up. She grabbed a bucket and filled it with ocean water and splashed it on them, "now you're awake."

She turned to Ward, "you're welcome."

He laughed at the sight of his men all in shock, "very good princess, thank you."

She smiled and stood right next to him, "shall we go?"

"Yes," he replied and then shouted to his men, "when you lot are done with just sitting there, you're welcome to come and join us," he turned around and headed deeper into the jungle area with Skye close at his side.

"So is there a map or something?"

Ward shrugged, "there used to be but it was lost. Not to worry though, I've been here enough times to look for this treasure that I pretty much know this place like the back of my hand."

"Sure we won't get lost?" she smirked.

"I never get lost," he replied as he continued hacking through the vines with his sword.

_________________

"We are so lost," Skye groaned as she sat down on a log to rest legs after a full day of walking.

Ward pulled out his compass, "no we're not, stop complaining. Just because it's a long hike doesn't mean that we're lost, but we're loosing daylight so I think we should stop for the night. Do you know how to build your own shelter?"

She shook her head, "no."

"Very well, I don't have time to make two, do you want mine?"

"No it's fine, you don't have to do that, how about you just make a bigger one and we could share?"

"Very well, what the lady wishes, the lady will get," he remarked as he started picking up leaves, sticks, and stray vines.

"Can you start a fire?"

She nodded and started working on the fire. She gather rocks and put them in the shape of a circle. In the middle she put a small pile of dry leaves and made a teepee of smaller twigs on top of it. She took the flint and steel that Ward had handed her and struck it multiple times until the Sparks finally caught fire.

She turned around with a smile on her face, very proud of herself, and was met with an already half finished shelter.

"How in the world did you build that so fast?"

"Practice," he grunted as he pushed sticks together and tied them together with a vine.

"Wow," she whistled, "you built all that in the time it took me to build a fire."

"In all fairness, it took you quite a while to build that fire."

She put a hand over her heart in mock offense, "well I'm sorry if it was my first time. When you live in the castle they teach you plenty of rough and tumble things to do, but building a fire was never one of them."

"Well good thing you knew how," he said as he finished tying up that last few branches and sat next to her on a log.

"You can go lie down if you're tired, I'll keep watch. Don't want any thief pirates getting their hands on you."

"My hero," she smiled.

"Yeah, who kidnapped you."

"That's alright, you've grown on me. When I first came aboard your ship you were mean and I thought I was gonna hate you. But not anymore. I actually kind of like you."

"Well if it's any consolation princess," a teasing name he used to use to mock her but had slowly become a term of endearment. Not that she needed to know that, "you've grown on me too."

She bumped his arm with her elbow, something that she had been doing more and more often, "look at that, the pirate has a heart after all."

"Oh I've always had a heart, I just choose who gets to see it. You should get some rest. I'll keep watch."

She stood up and started walking towards the shelter but paused and turned back to him and kissed him on the cheek, "thank you."

She quickly ran back inside of the shelter and went to bed, leaving a speechless Ward by the fire.

________________

"You must be tired," Skye said the next morning as she made her way out of the shelter, "I thought you were going to rest at some point and not stand guard all night."

"Ah good morning," he smiled, "don't worry I slept for about an hour or two so I'm fine. We're really close to the treasure today, we'll be there before noon."

"Will we really?" she asked excitedly.

He nodded, "yes, it's in those caves right over there."

Skye looked where he was pointing and saw a mall mountain in the distance, which she assumed would be much bigger upon arrival.

"Exciting."

"Yes, very. Here," he said as he threw her a banana that had been growing in one of the trees, "might as well eat."

"Thanks," she said as she raised her banana and started to peel it.

"Anything exciting happen while I was sleeping?"

He shook his head, "the occasional owl and then around 4:00 in the morning I heard commotion. We're not alone here, there's another group of pirates close by, probably also wanting to get their hands on the treasure."

She gave him a wide-eyed expression and stood up, "well what are we waiting for? Let's get to the treasure before they do!"

__________________

"Wow," said Skye, feeling like all the air had been taken from her lungs as she marveled at the beauty of the caves, "this place is beyond beautiful."

Ward smirked, "I know," he pointed to a small hill in the middle of the cave, where the sunlight was shining directly on a box, "that box is where you leave a drop of your blood and somehow it triggers all the boxes around here to be opened as well," he pointed to the many boxes scattered around the cave.

"Okay," said Skye as she started to climb the hill. It took her longer than she expected to finally reach the top, caves were very wet, making the hill pretty slippery, but she finally made it, as did Ward.

He held out a knife, "do you want to do it or me?"

She looked away from her outstretched hand and closed her eyes, "uh you should probably do it, I won't be able to muscle up the courage to cut myself."

"Ok," he said as he took her hand in his.

She fisted his jacket and turned away, only slightly grunting as he cut her hand, letting some of the blood spill on the lock of the box. He grabbed a small piece of cloth that he had taken from the ship and tied it around her hand to stop the bleeding.

They both watched as all the boxes in the room seemed to open one by one, filled with gold and jewels.

"Wow, my mom was a pretty busy woman."

"That she was," he smiled as he started to climb down the hill.

They heard voices outside of the cave and they both raised their swords when the voices drew nearer.

But they both relaxed when they realized that it was their crew, finally catching up with them.

"Hey Red!" Skye waved.

"Skye," he nodded, "did you do it?"

She nodded and smiled, "look around."

The crew gasped as they saw the many chests full of treasure and they started to pick them up.

"Let's get as much of this as we can back to the ship, alright?" Ward said as the crew cheered loudly at their findings.

________________

The last box was finally brought aboard the ship just a few hours later. The rest of the crew was waiting on only Red-beard, Skye, and their captain, the last few people to come aboard the ship.

They finally caught sight of the three of them running for their dear lives.

The tall blonde pirate grabbed a spy glass and watched as they ran nearer, "they're being chased by more pirates. Campbell's crew by the looks of it."

The crew scrambled to get the boat ready so that as soon as the three were onboard they could leave.

Skye was running for her dear life, not even bothering to turn her head when she heard a gun shot. She kept running, Ward in front f her and Red-beard behind her.

More gunshots followed them and she yelled at Ward, "who's shooting at us?"

"Lincoln Campbell's crew by the looks of them. He's not a very well known pirate, more of a misfit. Everyone even calls his crew the band of misfits."

"Is he going to kill us?"

"He's gonna try, just so he can get the treasure, but I won't let that happen," he said as he put a hand on her back and slightly pushed her in front of him so that she would make it to the ship first.

Skye climbed on board followed by the two men just moments after and as soon as all three were on board, they set sail for home.

"We did it!" she cheered as she waved her hands in the air.

Red-beard smiled at her and she turned to Ward who was clutching his side.

"Grant what's wrong?"

He moved his hand slightly and she saw that he had been shot.

She gasped and ran over to him and caught him as he fell, she laid him down on the deck and called for one of the men to help move him somewhere where they could remove the bullet and patch him up.

"Stay with me, Grant, it's gonna be fine."

He nodded but he was quickly loosing consciousness.

"No no no no no, don't do this, come on Grant, you can't leave. I love you," was the last thing he heard before everything went black.