A little over eight years passed and Charlotte found herself practicing a smile in the mirror.

She was worried about her smile.

It seemed fake.

Elizabeth had a way of smoldering over her smile and distracting others from her true feelings-others she didn't care for, anyway. Perhaps that was the problem. The people Elizabeth didn't care for were the very people Charlotte had always longed to impress.

Life had been much easier when she was small enough to hide behind her sister.

Charlotte gave up on the smile and tilted her chin up. That worked. If she wasn't happy, then at least she had to act as though she didn't care. As if she knew she was the prettiest girl in the room and nothing else really mattered.

The young woman almost cursed as she spotted a lock of dark hair that had caught on her beaded collar. Her maid had come and gone and done everything she could while she'd been there. It wasn't her fault that Charlotte had chosen to stay up late worrying about looking her best for James'--stop it--Lieutenant Norrington's promotion. It wasn't the maid's fault that Charlotte had even pestered the information out of her father in the first place.

Charlotte pinched her cheeks-maybe the pink would distract from the darkened circles?

The mirror disagreed.

The elder Miss Swann turned on her heel, checked her 'I don't care' look over her shoulder, and glided from the room. A knock on her sister's door found her father and sister eyeing a new dress, Elizabeth still in her dressing gown. Charlotte raised an eyebrow at the dress and then nodded in satisfaction at her father's choice. Her father responded with an amused smile.

"Not going to ask for your present, Charlotte?" He gestured to a servant and a clean white box appeared in the man's hands. "My, you have grown up."

"Or I know by now to just expect your bribes, Father," Charlotte took the box and gave her father a quick kiss on the cheek.

Elizabeth laughed and walked around the screen to change. Charlotte opened the box to find a hat, also obviously the latest fashion from London. She grinned and walked straight to the mirror, fixing the same pesky lock of hair before placing the hat in place.

As Charlotte continued to preen, their father was trying to be subtle. "I did think you could wear it to the ceremony today." He told Elizabeth.

"Ceremony?"

"Captain Norrington's promotion ceremony," Charlotte called over dramatically. She tilted her chin up and studied the smile. It looked much better under the hat.

Elizabeth poked a head out, pretending to look scandalized. "It's a good thing you aren't a gossip, Charlotte, or half the officers would be ruined."

"Oh, more than half," Charlotte said smoothly.

Their father coughed. After years of finding an awkward little girl eavesdropping on closed meetings, he rarely even tried to keep things from his eldest daughter anymore.

"Yes... Right... Ah, Captain....rather, Commodore Norrington now..." As her father got closer to the point, Charlotte very carefully pretended she wasn't listening any longer. Elizabeth gave her sister a look of sympathy which went ignored before she was tugged back behind the screen. "Elizabeth, he fancies you, you know."

This was not a surprise. Charlotte tilted her hat carefully. She tilted it back. She very carefully wondered which other dresses the hat would match.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the butler calling for their father. Charlotte's shoulders dropped the second her father was gone and a moment later an arm was looped around hers.

"How do I look?" Elizabeth peered into the mirror beside her sister. "Lovely hat."

"Lovely dress." Charlotte's smile was real as she said this. "Shall we go see who this visitor is?" Her voice was a bit brittle but Elizabeth seemed not to notice.

"I'll be right down," Elizabeth whirled away.

The elder twin let her smile drop and studied her reflection one last time.

She turned on her heel and marched down to meet her father, various pleasantries already exchanged by the time she made her way to the bottom of the stairs to stare curiously at the sword held out between her father and the blacksmith's apprentice.

"How beautiful," Charlotte said.

The men both jumped.

"Quite," Her father coughed, trying to recover. "And impressive. .. very impressive. Commodore Norrington will be pleased, I'm sure. Do pass my compliments on to your master."

"I shall," Will returned the sword to the case as he nodded in reply, leaving the box open as Charlotte stepped closer to examine it. Charlotte ran a finger over the gold that Will had worked into the sword's handle and tried to pretend she didn't sense the slight twinge of disappointment in his voice. "A craftsman is always pleased to hear his work is appreciated."

"Charlotte, please be careful." Her father sounded nervous enough that Charlotte pulled her hand from the sword-how he'd known she was about to try to get a closer look at the blade, she didn't know. Her hand went right back to the sword as her twin appeared and distracted the men. "Ah, Elizabeth! You look stunning!"

Her father grinned proudly up at his youngest as she descended the stairway. Charlotte looked up long enough to see her sister's nervous smile, Will's returning lovestruck look. Charlotte began examining the soft lining of the sword case and refusing to listen to anything they were saying.

A few moments later her father was taking the case and Elizabeth was adjusting Charlotte's hat and the three Swanns were walking out the door.

Charlotte could have sworn she heard Will call her sister's name as they left.

A few moments later she decided she wasn't going to manage that smile today after all.

...

True to her decision, Charlotte glowered throughout the ceremony. She actually enjoyed it quite a bit: watching the soldier's formations and movement, the flash of the sword as it was presented, an excuse to watch Norrington, the sunshine dappling through her new hat. None of her contentedness made it to her face and at the end of the ceremony, as the celebration began, she realized she was already very tired.

Charlotte walked away from the bustle of people and found herself overlooking the docks below. She wished she was young enough or alone enough to sit and dangle her legs or lay sprawled out to peer over and see the length of the wall she stood atop. A few thoughts more and she was remembering the last time she'd been down on those docks, stepping off of a ship. She wished she could make sense of the things she missed. None of them seemed reasonable.

"May I have a moment, Miss Swann?" Commodore Norrington asked, apparently drawn by her thoughts.

Charlotte nodded stiffly. "Of course, Commodore."

"You may know... It is my intention to state my intentions to your sister." He caught a slight frown of confusion and his voice become rushed. "Of marrying your sister. But I know you disapprove of me." The confused frown became deeper. "So I wanted to ask what I might do to gain your approval. As I hope we shall soon be family."

Well, this certainly hurt.

"I wish you both happiness," Charlotte said finally. That was what people said, wasn't it?

"Miss Swann, please. What can I do, what do you need to know to decide I'm worthy of your sister? She cares what you think and..." He considered his words. "I don't wish for there to be trouble between you and me."

"Oh, no, of course not." This shouldn't be so difficult... Should it? What did he want her to say?

He waited.

She shifted nervously, trying not to wring her hands. Her face stayed a mask of disinterest.

"Miss Swann, I-"

Charlotte caught a strange movement behind him as she looked up. She had just enough time to focus her eyes and find the shape of her sister before, about one hundred feet away, her sister stumbled backward and off of a cliff.

"Elizabeth!" Charlotte was there what seemed a moment later, staring down at an empty ocean, a splash and no sign of her sister. The wind tugged at Charlotte's hat and she absent-mindedly placed a hand above her head to hold it in place.

The water began to erase any marks of contact, waves returning to their normal pace. Men were shouting, panicking around her as she stared down. Charlotte began to feel dizzy.

There wasn't time for that!

In a daze, still not quite aware of what anyone had said or was currently yelling at her, Charlotte spun on her heel and began to run. She felt a bit ridiculous, one hand on her head and one lifting up her skirts as she sprinted toward the docks. Charlotte stumbled and caught up her skirts with both hands as she continued running, her hat flying off to hit one of the soldiers chasing after her.

She made it to her sister just as Elizabeth finished coughing up lungs of water. Charlotte ignored the three men standing over her twin, throwing herself on her knees to wrap her arms around Elizabeth.

"You lost your dress," Charlotte realized weakly. She had a moment of relief that she didn't have to follow her loose plan of leaping into the ocean to save her sister and then sighed as she realized her shivering sister was getting her wet anyway.

"You lost your hat," Elizabeth replied.

Charlotte reached up absentmindedly and found that her hair had tumbled down as she ran. She shook her head helplessly before pulling her sister to her feet. Soldiers were gathered around them now, Norrington had his new, beautiful sword at the chin of one of the men who'd been helping Elizabeth. Charlotte let their father take Elizabeth and considered the man as Elizabeth accepted a man's coat. She'd never seen someone quite like him.

He smelled terrible.

Elizabeth interrupted the beginning of Charlotte's growing theories. "Yes - yes, I'm fine - Commodore Norrington, do you intend to kill my rescuer?"

All eyes darted between Elizabeth and the stranger. Norrington frowned, looking between the two as well and catching the concern on Charlotte's face before he drew back his sword.

The commodore held out a hand and Charlotte let out a small noise of protest that no one heard. "Very well," Norrington said. "I believe thanks are in order."

Charlotte turned away, assuming things were calming down. She had enough time to admire the nearest ship before she caught the end of Norrington's speech.

"... pirate."

Charlotte examined the man as a dozen guns were raised on trained on him. She considered him again for a moment and found she was not surprised.

Elizabeth began attempting to save the pirate.

Charlotte began attempting to fix her hair.

She was growing more and more embarrassed about her run down the wall now that her sister was safe; their father seemed more upset than Elizabeth about anything that had happened. Still... Charlotte pinned up a lock of hair and stepped closer to her sister, keeping at her side just in case Elizabeth tried to pull something and needed a helping hand. Or distracting hand.

The argument continued, uninteresting, as the pirate was manacled and made his own snarky comments. Elizabeth was scowling by the end and turned to her sister for commiseration as the soldiers prepared to lead the man away. Charlotte gave her sister a reassuring nod, not really sure what she meant. They could keep trying? Elizabeth had done what she could? It was over now?

"Finally!"

Charlotte's head jerked back toward the pirate in time to see closest soldier stumbling away as his gun flew off into the water. The pirate spun toward the Swann sisters and Charlotte gave a panicked squeak and shoved her sister as hard as she could straight back into the ocean.

And Charlotte found herself with the chains of a pirate's manacles across her throat, a dozen guns now pointed at her as she fought violently and in vain to get free again.