Charlotte kept an eye on the two men as they began to consider their opportunities but did not stay to assist.

She needed to get out of the dress.

They were standing a bit of woods a few feet from the fort, just far enough down the path to see more of the beach and the harbor. Charlotte stepped around a corner as though to keep watch and quickly wrestled the loose dress away from the boy's clothes she'd worn underneath. She considered. She tossed the dress aside and tucked her hair under her collar again. Loose top, tight pants, all so unusual and uncomfortable.

And now she would be stuck on a ship with two people. No escapes there.

Charlotte checked the men were still discussing; she tucked herself back around the stone wall again and considered, tapping a hand against the solid stone. Then, decision made for good, she took her last moment alone in Port Royal to wave over a little girl and pay her to fetch a bit of pen and paper and then to deliver a vague message to the house, addressed to her father. It was hours til lunch and she had no other reason for him to return there sooner.

If he did return? If she were caught? Would it be bad luck or good?

The momentum of life, death, and lost sister was starting to lull. If she waited too long, she would be crippled with fear and then she would never see Elizabeth and she needed to see her sister again, just once.

Pirates were scary.

Friendly acquaintances were awful.

Charlotte's sister dying was incomprehensible.

Will waved Charlotte over not a moment too soon.

Charlotte followed the men further down the beach, letting Will make conversation and supplying her most noncommittal 'mmhmms'. She was glad he was there to talk to Jack now that she'd gotten what she wanted. She was more than glad to use Will as a brother figure to hide behind, a nice fallback as she thought of all the people out there she didn't know. It was a trick she'd once used often, but Elizabeth hadn't been good for that since they were fourteen and Charlotte's height had caught up to her twin. As they snuck down the beach toward a few derelict rowboats, she decided she was happy to bring it back.

Charlotte was less happy ten minutes later when her feet touched the water and she found herself sneaking forward between the two men with a rowboat held above their heads.

No vision. Please, no vision.

She screwed her eyes shut and they continued, using the weight of the boat to hold them down, using the air caught inside it to move forward, forward, forward. She did not open her eyes once. The water was warm and heavy on her clothes, tugging strangely on the loose boy's shirt. She was pretty sure she'd gotten another splinter. And she'd been so careful to hold the injury away from the boat!

"Charlie, can you swim?" Will asked suddenly.

"Oh."

Her breath began to speed up.

Jack interrupted. "Ah. Gentleman, we've found an anchor."

Charlotte didn't want to look. "You two first."

A pause. Then Jack said, "After you, then."

The sound of a splash.

Another splash.

Well.

Charlotte considered a moment and then experimentally lowered her head under the water. Instantly the overwhelming emptiness was gone. She opened her eyes and she saw water. She saw an anchor and chain and Jack's boots disappearing as he pulled his way upward. She waited.

Nothing.

Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut, popped up for one last gulp of air, and followed her co-conspirators up toward what was now an enemy ship.

...

Charlotte breached the water with both hands gripping tight to an anchor's chain and her eyes yet again shut. The girl moved up, refusing to let herself think about the burn of climbing now that she was out of the water, the burn of salt water against her yet again bleeding hand. As she threw a hand through the rail and looped her elbow round it, she peeked through to see the ship's guards backing off the ship in the face of two 'vicious pirate' blades.

They looked more annoyed than afraid, she thought.

Charlotte raised the hood of a sopping wet cloak, tucked her chin down into its shadow, and with a final surge swept up onto a bit of rigging to loom in the background behind Will and Sparrow. She held out her useless pistol.

A beat of startled eyes on her.

She told herself to stare them down, to say nothing.

A beat of the world slowing to the time of the waves sloshing against the ship and her heart reminding her of its panic.

They weren't moving.

She lost that plan. Her voice slipped out, rough from lack of breath, sharp with irritation.

"Do not tempt the desperate, my friends."

The soldiers looked from her pistol to her hooded face and finished fleeing the ship.

Charlotte felt her cheeks burn. Had she really said something that stupid? That dramatic? She should have stayed hanging off the side, not saying things that sounded like they came from Elizabeth's favorite stories. And the stupid hood: as if they wouldn't figure out in an hour who she was. And tell everyone. Everyone was going to know. Norrington was going to know what she'd done.

They would all know what she'd said.

And her hand really hurt quite badly where she held the pistol.

Will and Jack got the ship headed out as she searched out a bit of dry bandage. As they began to move out toward open waters, Charlotte found the pirate approaching her.

He reached up and tugged her hood back with a wink.

She glared at him and wished for a hat.

"Starting to regret following your brother, young Turner? Or are you really desperate?" He studied her. "And desperate for what?"

Charlotte stepped away and drew her sword, starting to cut away at various random ropes. They were supposed to be destroying the ship, weren't they? That had been the plan?

"Is it fame?" Jack took a look behind them and evidently decided they had some time. "Or just treasure?"

"I'm... loyal to my family," Charlotte mumbled.

The pirate watched her, picking out weak points before moving off to destroy a mast with Will. She wished she hadn't interviewed him, that she'd known to wait for Will. Had she ever said a word and not regretted it?

Charlotte hid a sheepish smile and went to loot the main cabin, leaving the other two to finish the sacrilege of destroying a perfectly good ship. When she slunk back out, they had finished up and a glance back showed her the Interceptor.

She'd heard her father brag about the Interceptor twenty-three separate times.

She hadn't needed anyone to convince her it was their only chance.

Charlotte imagined she saw the Commodore though in truth they were all much too far to pick out who might be who. There was an ugly curse and she wished briefly that she'd had a chance of convincing James to come instead of this disgusting pirate. She couldn't daydream much further-if he'd come, it would have been for Elizabeth. Instead, she shared a look of disgust with Will and then the ship was almost on them and she was forced to find a rope and stand ready and hidden with Will and Jack.

The wind and sun dried that last bit of ocean from her hair.

The waves were calling to her again.

She ignored them.

There was quite a bit of yelling as the soldiers arrived. She heard the thuds of their boots and Commodore's commands and she was swinging. The world was so big and overwhelming and blue. The ship so far away and flimsy on the waves.

She couldn't look down, she couldn't look down.

Charlotte landed awkwardly, bruising herself against her sword hilt as she stumbled onto the Interceptor's deck. She hurried to catch up to the others, drawing her blade to slice at the ropes that lashed the ships together. The two men left her to it, both running to start the ship moving as she reached the back of the ship and snapped the last few ropes. On the last one, the ship jerked away and she fell against the wooden rail. Instinctively she looked down to catch herself.

Her eyes grazed the surface of rolling water.

Her heart pinched...

No vision came.

Just...

Approval?

Oh, that was so much worse.

The ship continued forward and Charlotte looked up one last time to find that now she could, indeed, pick out the Commodore in the crowd. And his eyes were already on her.

Charlotte could see that he recognized her.

Charlotte could see him growing smaller.

She could see confusion and shock and horror, harder to see as the water flew past her ship and his ship began to fall apart.

What she wanted, wished, ached to do was just hold his eyes defiantly and sail off boldly toward adventure. Instead, her mouth was a line and the Commodore found a pair of eyes that grew sadder as the girl behind them wondered if she would ever even see him again. If it mattered either way.

Charlotte's hands tightened on the rail.

She could help but lean forward, feet raising onto her toes, lifting up onto the rail as though it could help her get one last peek.

Across the waves, Norrington moved jerkily toward the bow of his crippled ship, ready to yell a warning or a command as he saw her tipping off the back of the ship. He stopped before the words could even fully form in his mind. For once, Swann's daughter wasn't falling.

Where she stood across a widening ocean, Charlotte was just saying,

"Farewell."

And maybe it was Charlotte's imagination but...

Far away as they were...

She heard the word return on the wind.