"Come on, pirate!" A soldier called out from the hallway leading to the jail cells. It was morning, and the sun was now shining through the windows instead of the moon.

Jack was being dragged with two guards on either side of him, leading him down the hall with me to follow. Jack's boots were dragging behind him as he let his weight sag, which I tried to do but the guards had no trouble dragging me. I ended up just walking, but kept trying to struggle out of their grasp.

"Save your energy," Jack said over his shoulder while he heard me struggle. "You know, for a clever lass, you really don't think things like this through. Dying is no fun when you're knackered. It's exhausting enough as it is."

"At least I'm trying," I spat back.

An inmate was singing, which echoed through the prison. I saw Jack do a double take as he looked in the cell, and the guards stopped walking.

"Dad?" Jack asked.

The pirate turned around, sporting a grey and black beaded beard and a black hat with a red feather. He had dreadlocks in his hair and silver teeth shining when he opened his mouth. He looked similar to Edward Teague, but he definitely was not him.

"Uncle Jack!" Jack said with a big smile.

"Jackie boy! How's it going?" His Uncle Jack asked.

"Can't complain really," Jack said, still being held up by the guards, "you?"

"I've been waiting' all morning in here for a beating. But the service is terrible!"

"Shameful," Jack shook his head.

"Who's the lass?" Uncle Jack asked.

"I'm Annette, nice to meet you," I said with a polite smile, despite the circumstances.

"How are you, darling?"

I answered honestly, "I've been better."

"She's a pretty one, Jackie," Uncle Jack said.

"Don't remind her, because she gets a big head and will maroon you," Jack said.

My jaw slacked at his comment, slightly insulted. "You really need to let that go."

"Jack." He walked up to the bars, and the guards let Jack struggle and brought him to them. "The oceans have turned to blood. Best to stay on dry land where it's safe."

"I'm about to be executed on dry land," Jack said flatly.

Uncle Jack thought about it for a moment, "good point. Did I ever tell you the one about the skeleton?"

"Yes, you have. Many times, in fact—" Jack nodded.

"Skeleton goes into a bar..." Uncle Jack ignored him, "orders a beer and a mop."

Jack shook his head while an inmate further down started laughing, catching my attention. I turned back to Uncle Jack and Jack said with a small smile, "funny as ever."

"Come on, let's go," the soldier said to Jack, forcing him away from the cell and his uncle. The guards holding me followed.

"Oh, if they disembowel you, ask for Victor!" His uncle called out to us, "he's got the softest hands."

"Thank you!" Jack and I called out as we were being carried off.

"And mention my name!" Uncle Jack added, "they won't cut your feet off!"

"He's certainly helpful," I said to Jack and we continued to be carried off and shoved into a metal block carriage, pulled to the St. Martin Square by horses.

We bounced along as we were sitting with other inmates and I drummed my fingers on my knees as I said, "this isn't exactly how I thought today would go."

"I'm just trying to enjoy the scenery," Jack said, staring at the blank wall behind me.

"Any last words?" I asked. I was hopeless. There was no chance we were getting out of this. We have escaped death so many times, it was finally catching up to us.

"How much rum do you have?" He asked. Of course he would be wishing for rum at a time like this. He has been cradling a bottle every night. "A man should be three sheets to the wind on the day of his execution."

I sighed at the situation. "I blame myself."

"I blame yourself too."

"I'm sick of you. If we weren't getting executed today, I'd kill you myself."

One of the other prisoners asked us, "how long have you two been married?"

I sneered and looked up at Jack, who had a similar expression. We have known each other for so long, I could understand how our interactions would be compared to those of a married couple. Jack told the man, "Annie couldn't obtain me in a hundred years."

"But, you say there is still a chance?" I joked dryly.

Jack crinkled his nose and said, "shut it."

"If there's anything you've wanted to say to me, now's the time," I said playfully.

"I have one last request."

"What?" I asked.

He nodded at my pants, "don't be stingy. Show some leg. Come on, we haven't got all day."

In response, I slapped his nearby hand angrily.

Jack's glassy eyes gazed down at me and he said, "if not that, then I've got nothing."

"I've got a few choice words," I said through my teeth.

After a few minutes of my verbal berating, the carriage stopped and the guards opened the door and pulled Jack out first, followed by me. I looked around and saw the massive crowd in the towns square, all here to watch our executions.

"How would you like to die, pirates?" A solider asked. He sounded excited. "Hanging, firing squad, or a new invention: the guillotine."

"Guillotine? Sounds French," Jack said, "I love the French." He winked at me. He leaned to the soldier and said, "did you know that they invented mayonnaise? How bad could it be? It's French, eh?"

"That's a terrible idea, Jack—" I shook my head— "you are completely screwed, but good luck anyway."

"What?" He asked.

The soldier used his feather pen to gesture to the guard holding Jack to turn him around, and he saw the sharp, giant blade of the guillotine next to the executioner. If my hands were free, I'd be putting my face in my palm.

"Oh, Jack..." I mumbled. I turned to the solider and said, "put me down for a bloody hanging."

"Oh, well then..." Jack said, "I've changed me mind!"

The soldiers began pushing us through the crowds of screaming citizens. Their screaming was giving me a headache. They were shaking their fists at us, and they marched us through the square.

"No, please! Have mercy upon me!" Jack begged. He stammered as he said, "I'm a bed-wetter!"

I was pushed away from Jack, toward the gallows to be hanged. I was shoved up the steps after a girl in a blue housemaids dress, and her brown hair was pinned up and messy. She had blue eyes that were kind but fearful, and she looked like she was on the brink of tears. I wondered what she did to become a prisoner, but I did not care enough to ask. In a matter of minutes, we were both to be sentenced to death. We will wear the same necklace of rope.

"I mean, I have to walk upstairs as well for this?" Jack complained. Despite all the clamoring and yelling from the crowd below, Jack's voice is so loud and distinct, he was all I could hear.

"Bring the basket!" A soldier commanded over by Jack, and another put the basket in front of the hole of the guillotine where Jack's neck would be placed.

I watched as Jack was shoved to the other side of the guillotine. They began strapping Jack to a plank of wood and he said, "here's an idea. Here's an idea. Why don't we try an old fashioned stoning, eh? I'd kill to be stoned right now. Gets the crowd involved, doesn't it?"

They took Jack's hat off as they positioned him down and Jack shouted, "I should like to speak to Victor in Disembowelment! I should like to speak to..." he froze when he looked down to see two heads looking up at him from the basket. He said casually, "I'm not one to complain normally, but this basket's full of heads."

"All this, just for having intelligence," the woman who was standing in front of me spat as the executioner placed her under a rope.

"All this," I repeated as the executioner placed me under my own rope beside her, "just for being a pirate."

"I asked to touch the grass one last time, but they said that I would kill everyone with lightning." She rolled her eyes.

I thought for a second, trying to find any sort of logic to that claim. Finally, I asked, "how?"

"They said that I would get powers from the Devil through my feet," she humorlessly chuckled.

"Men really are bloody idiots," I mumbled.

"That poor man... who would choose the guillotine?" The woman asked, nodding toward Jack who was still trying to talk his way out of his execution.

I rolled my eyes. "An idiot who didn't know what a guillotine was."

She looked toward me and asked, "do you know him?"

"Wish I didn't," I grumbled through my clenched teeth. "It's because of him I'm in this... this predicament. I personally believe that this is unnecessary. This is— this is terribly uncomfortable."

"I'm so sorry," the woman said, "I'm Carina."

"Doesn't matter anymore... considering the circumstances." I looked around, trying to find any way to escape.

The executioner placed our respective nooses around our necks and kept our hands tied behind our backs. I struggled to free my hands, soon giving up. He tightened the noose around my neck, and I tried to loosen it by flexing my neck muscles. It did not take long for me to give up. Any movement I made, the rope rubbed against my burning skin.

I looked down at the wooden trapdoor that creaked under my boots. I imagined how many poor souls had been in the same situation as I was in at that moment. I looked up at the executioner and asked, "are you sure it is safe?"

There was a black mask over his face, but I could tell that my black comedic joke made it difficult for him not to express any emotion of humor. He just stared at me and I flashed him a little sarcastic smile, and then he walked over to the lever.

Remembering Philip the missionary that Blackbeard captured, I said a quick prayer in French. I didn't want to miss out on a great afterlife because of a technicality. I didn't think this was how I would die, but I think I have always known it would be because of Jack Sparrow.

My eyes gazed over to Jack. He will soon take a trip to Jack Ketch's Kitchen. Hopefully my afterlife won't be either him.

Getting beheaded is a horrible experience, obviously, but it's what they do with your head that has always made my stomach turn. They will put his head in a pot of boiling water, sea salt, and cumin to partially boil it. Then, his still recognizable head will be displayed on a stake to be used as a warning. They cooked it with cumin because birds seem to hate cumin, so they won't eat him.

As for me, I can only hope that my hanging is quick. Sometimes, people will not have a far drop and they'll be in obvious pain, twitching and kicking their feet for as long as an entire hour before they are finally given mercy and die. Or, the drop could be so long that their head pops off with a fountain of blood spraying over the audience. I've seen it all done before. It's horrific and I can't imagine the pain. God could punish me once and for all, and these ropes looked awfully long...

"The final words of Carina Smyth," Carina began a speech. The crowd continued to clamor amongst themselves until Carina shouted, "quiet!" Everyone went silent. Even I leaned away from her, surprised that she could get so loud.

She repeated, "the final words of Carina Smyth. Good sirs, I'm not a witch... but I forgive your common dimeittedness and feeble brains. In short, most of you have the mind of a goat."

"Pardon me, sir," Jack said, so loudly that it interrupted Carina's speech, still face down and keeping eye contact with the heads in the basket. "Is it not common practice for those about to be executed... to be granted a last, I don't know, something or other..."

"I believe I was making a point," Carina said from the other side of the square. "If you could just be patient."

"Telling him to be patient is like telling the tide not to come in," I added.

"Hey!" Jack shouted.

"Told you," I said.

"My head's about to be lopped off, hence the urgency," Jack said.

"And our necks are to be broken," Carina said.

"Did you know that on occasion, the neck doesn't actually break?" Jack enlightened. The crowd turned at the same time toward whoever was speaking. "It just hurts."

"What?" Carina asked.

"Oh, yes. I've seen men swing for hours, eyes bulging, tongues swelling... revolting gurgling sound," Jack described horrifically.

"Thanks for keeping it vague," I said to him.

"He's with you?" Carina asked me again.

"Unfortunately so," I sighed.

"You chose to stay with me!" Jack shouted.

"It was obviously a mistake!" I snapped out.

"You cannot call your uncontrollable lust for me a mistake!"

"Well, I just did!"

Jack paused for a second before shouting, "she's left-handed!"

"Witch!" A voice called out from the crowd.

I rolled my eyes, "super, merci— thank you, thank you, Jack, for giving them another reason to hang me!"

"It's not like you were not going to be hung before," he said.

"Jack is a thief!" I retaliated.

"What am I supposed to have stolen, eh? Your heart? I only took what was mine."

"Oh, piss off," I rolled my eyes at his ignorance. "You wish!"

"Annette is Pirate King!" Jack said, officially sealing my fate to die today.

I gasped and took a moment to think of a fact about Jack to tattle about. "Jack has a tattoo of the Loch Ness Monster on his back!"

"Hey, hey!" He screamed. "That was a secret!"

"It's not like you were not going to get your head chopped off before," I mocked.

Jack thought for only a moment before he said, "Annie used to work at a brothel!"

"You weren't supposed to tell anyone, Jack!" I snarled.

"Well, I think we're way past that," he growled.

"And it was only one night!"

"Why would you mention me tattoo?"

"Move past it!" I snapped.

"May I finish?" Carina interrupted us.

"No! You're lucky. Wish I was hung," Jack whined.

"Should have listened to me when I said that the guillotine was a bad idea, Jack!" My voice rang out.

"I can see that now, thank you!" He said sarcastically.

"We all know that Jack is a double crossing, two-faced, pig headed—" I began.

Jack interrupted me, "please... don't help me."

"I was not," I snapped.

"Oh," he said disappointedly.

I finished, "but please do not associate me with him. Do not punish me for the sins of Jack Sparrow."

"That's it?!" Jack asked, seemingly under the impression that I was going to talk us both out of this mess.

"Don't lose your head," I said. Pun fully intended.

"That's not funny!" Jack shouted with his high pitched voice.

"Kill the filthy pirate," Carina said, "I'll wait."

"But witches first," Jack said scornfully.

"Jack!" I shouted.

"I'm sorry, love, but I was pretty sure you were a witch when we first met, and many... many years after that." Jack's voice grew higher as he spoke.

"I believe it, she is left-handed," someone from the crowd said.

"I'm not a witch. She is not a witch. Were you not listening?" Carina said, "witches don't exist."

"Quite hard to listen when you have the mind of a goat!" Jack retorted.

"Enough!" One of the guards shouted, "kill them all!"

The crowd began to cheer and I gasped as I saw our executioner grip the lever to free the floor beneath us. I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. It's not very often that this happens, but I was frightened.

Suddenly, a boy started swinging from a rope above the gallows, screaming and distracting everyone. He landed and rolled onto the ground, tumbling straight into a soldier. The boy, who I immediately recognized as Henry, started hitting and punching and kicking the guards before two finally grabbed hold of his arms to surrender him.

"Get another noose!" Scarfield shouted. "Did you think you could defeat us, boy?"

"No, sir," Henry said while out of breath, "I'm just the diversion. Fire!"

I looked over to see Gibbs and the crew standing beside a cannon on the edge of the crowd, revealing it by ripping off a beige canvas that covered it. Gibbs brought a torch down to it, causing it to flash as it fired. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see them.

I followed the cannonball with my eyes, watching as it headed straight for the guillotine. The executioner dropped the rope, and the blade came crashing down.

"Jack!" I shouted instinctively. My happiness was quickly replaced with fear from the race to see if Jack's head was going to get chopped off or not.

The cannonball hit the of the wooden supports underneath Jack, and the wood collapsed quickly. The floor caved as the guillotine fell back, bringing Jack screaming along with it. The momentum caused the guillotine to swing around in circles, with the blade teasing as it fell to the top of the guillotine or sliding down toward Jack's neck in a dangerous pendulum.

"Still rather be stoned!" Jack screamed as he swung around.

At least he never lost his sense of humor. I felt the blood rush back to my face when the suspense subsided. The blade was still tempting, but I felt a lot better knowing that he was safe.

"Reload!" Gibbs commanded.

The crew started fighting against the soldiers and guards, the crowd panicking and running to disperse from the fighting. They fired off another cannon, and Scrum ran up the gallows to me and Carina.

"Oh, merde, not him," I whined. Scrum has proven time and time again to be a mopus, and my faith in his abilities of being a hero has dwindled significantly.

"Why?" Carina asked.

Scrum ran and tried to jump-kick the executioner, but he bounced right off the large man and landed flat on his back. Carina looked exasperated, and as the executioner walked up to Scrum, she used her boot to kick the executioner off the platform.

"Oh, that's why," Carina said to me. I nodded.

"Thank you," Scrum said, grabbing his hat and standing up to his feet, but a soldier came up behind him and they started sword fighting. All the while, the nooses were still tight around our necks, and I couldn't get my hands free from the thick rope that tied them behind my back.

The soldier tried to push the lever with his sword, which made my eyes go wide and I tightened my neck muscles as a last ditch effort to prepare for my hanging. Scrum blocked the soldier and said, "what are you doing?"

"Careful!" Carina shouted as the two started fighting over the lever.

Scrum pulled him off the lever, overpowering him as he punched him off the scaffold.

After the wave of relief washed over me, I looked over to the guillotine, but it had somehow come apart so the blade was no longer attached. However, Jack was still strapped to the wood plank, waddling around the square and trying to dodge soldiers with swords.

"Thank you," Carina said to Scrum. He walked over to me first and cut the ropes from my hands. I thanked him and started to release the rope around my neck.

"You're welcome, me lady," Scrum said, sweeping off his hat and with an elegant bow before releasing Carina from her ropes, and he knocked the lever, opening the boards below our feet. Carina screamed as she fell, but I was able to jump out of the way just in time, letting my unused noose swing.

I dropped to the floor and peered over the hole and saw that Henry had caught her. Confident that she would be fine, I marched to Scrum and snatched his sword out of his hands. I hissed at him, "imbécile, go do something intelligent," and ran off the scaffold.

I looked around to see Jack still strapped to the wood, backing up and falling over a wooden coffin. His feet kicked the soldier that he was fighting in the face as he flipped over, landing on his face. I thought maybe I should help him, but figured that he deserved it and continued fighting off the soldiers in front of me.

The fighting eventually subsided when I noticed my crew gathering at the gallows, where Henry was still holding up Carina so the rope around her neck was slacked. Jack was now free from his bounds, and he had a twinkle in his eye that gravitated me to him.

My anger with his still overwhelmed me. I passed a fallen guard and I swiped his sword from his belt. With a sword in each hand, I approached Jack and I raised one of them above my head. I was so mad, I wanted to slice it through his tiny brain.

Jack managed to glance at me just in time to duck away from the blade. I huffed as I raised it again, but Jack stepped up to me and grabbed a hold of my wrists. I flicked my wrist up of the sword I had pressing into his torso, letting him know that I was seconds from ending his pathetic life. He glared down at me, but asked jokingly, "what did you think this was going to accomplish?"

"I want to see you dead," I spat at him.

"If you'd just let me speak, I think you'll like what I've got to say. If you kill me, you'll never know."

I squinted my eyes at him. I held the handles of the cutlass tighter, and I could feel my wrists rubbing against Jack's calloused palms.

"Drop the swords, darling," he demanded.

I obey no man. I have had enough of men trying to walk over me and I will no longer silence my voice. However, I was extremely intrigued to what Jack had to offer me in exchange for his life.

He didn't deserve another chance, but I let the cutlasses slip from my grasp. They landed in the dirt behind my boots. Jack smiled down at me and said, "good girl."

Jack turned toward Henry and Carina. Carina still had the rope tight around her neck, while Henry was struggling to keep her from getting hanged. Jack proudly announced to the entire crew, "let us sail! To the Wounded... Diseased Canary..."

"To the Dying Gull!" Gibbs corrected.

"To the Dying Gull!" Jack repeated as the crew began to walk off to the ship. He turned to me and said, "horrible name."

I swiped down and picked up one of the swords that I had dropped as I walked along side Jack back to the ship. Jack eyed me wearily, but I slipped the sword into my belt.

"Get over yourself," I mumbled.

"I will be apprehensive over a lass who tried to kill me moments ago. Excuse me for being a little neurotic."

"Trust is not easily earned, or kept," I told him.

"I did it once. And I'll do it again."

Cremble and Cotton worked together with Henry to get the rope off of Carina. We made our strut to the Dying Gull, and I felt a twinge of excitement that I haven't felt in a long time. I wasn't going to admit it just yet, but I could smell an adventure.

AN: If you were a pirate, what would you wear?
I love the black coat with the deep cuffs; the puffy shirt; and I would definitely wear pants. Corsets seem like stereotypical female-pirate attire but that just seems like it would get in the way