Stranded Again

Prologue: On Her Own

Sitting in the Captain Jack's old cabin, Elizabeth allowed her thoughts to wander to him. It had been two months since that fateful night at Tia Dalma's. Barbossa had come down the stairs and the crew had set off with out farther ado. The only thing that had been keeping Elizabeth from going insane with worry was steering The Dauntless. Governor Swann had been rather reluctant at giving them the ship, what with pirates being aboard, but Elizabeth had swayed him in the end.

Elizabeth knew she was doing the right thing, but something inside her was telling her that this was wrong, all wrong. She wasn't supposed to being searching for Jack with a ship full of people, she just knew it. And so she made the decision to jump ships the next time they made port. Luckily for her, that would be soon, as the ship was right that moment heading for Tortuga. With the thought of soon being on her own looking for Jack, Elizabeth fell asleep in the bed that Jack had laid in so many months ago, thinking of her.

Chapter 1: Taking Over and The Storm

Tortuga. A pirate's port. A place of dirty, rum soaked men and scandalous whores. Elizabeth hated being here but had no other choice if she wished to get herself a ship.

"Where're you going?" Will's sweet, gentle voice rang out behind Elizabeth.

"I need to get a drink, just wait in the room, I'll be there soon." Elizabeth hated lying to Will, but there was nothing else she could do as she couldn't very well tell him that she was planning on taking over ship by sword point.

Walking into the nearest tavern, Elizabeth took off the vest she had been wearing and unbuttoned her shirt a bit more. She tousled her hair and prayed to God that she looked sexy enough to get a man to trust her. She walked up to the nearest one, he looked drunker than the rest, and lucky for her he was quite decent looking, what with his golden brown hair and tanned skin.

"Excuse me, Sir," she whispered huskily, "I need your help."

The man shot straight up, clearly wanting to do anything to help her.

"Yes, Miss, what is it that you need?" His voice was kind and it almost reminded her of Will. Stop thinking of him, she reminded herself, You have more important things to do, like get a ship! Maintaining an air of sexually she breathed "I need to find a ship. My husband has deserted me and I need to get back home." Wanting to seem believable, Elizabeth pouted her lips and made sad puppy eyes.

"Of course, Miss! I'll help you find a decent ship." He said, being entirely sincere.

"Thanks ever so much." Elizabeth replied, with a bat of her lashes. The kind young man took her hand and led her out of the tavern. A southeastern wind had blown up and was making Elizabeth nervous, a storm was coming; she could feel it in her bones. As if sensing her tenseness the man reassured her that harsh winds always blew over Tortuga.

"Will we be there soon?" Elizabeth asked "I so wish to be getting home as quickly as possible."

"Yes, yes. This ship is the fastest in the Caribbean." Elizabeth highly doubted this, because she could name one ship that was currently in Jones's locker called The Black Pearl, but she still looked kindly at the man as took her up onto a red and white ship, The Pride, and to the captain. He proceeded to inform the captain of Elizabeth's 'situation' and the captain set sail almost immediately.

Once they were far enough away from the dock so that no one could hear but not so far away as the crew couldn't get back to land, Elizabeth unsheathed her sword and walked over to helm.

"I'm terribly sorry about this, sir, but I'm going to have to take over your ship." The captain merely laughed after hearing this, but when he saw the seriousness in Elizabeth's eyes, he put his hands in the air.

"I don't want to hurt you, any of you, so please just get all of your men into the longboats and go back to Tortuga. There's a man in The Sunken Ship named Will Turner, he'll give you passage to anywhere you need to go. If he questions you just tell him Elizabeth Swann sent you." As she was saying all this the captain got all his crew into the boats and he could somehow feel Elizabeth's need to do what ever she was going to do alone.

Elizabeth soon learned her first lesson on handling a ship. Said lesson being that you never, ever sail a ship by yourself. A terrible storm had come about and Elizabeth was finding it difficult to handle everything, which did not mean she didn't know how to handle a ship. She had been at sea for more than two weeks and during that time there had nothing but fine weather, Elizabeth did well in fine weather. It was when the sea turned against her that she had trouble. She suddenly wished Jack was with her. He would know what to do.

All at once a huge wave broke over the deck. The ship started to rock back forth whilst more waves crashed down causing Elizabeth to hold onto the wheel as tight as possible. She was getting scared and didn't know what was going to happen next. The storm started to calm a bit, but, like all things in Elizabeth's life, it just got worse.

Praying was the only thing she could do. As she felt the ship start to slowly tip beneath her, Elizabeth prayed with all her might that she would live through this. Finally, after what seemed like a life time, the ship flipped over. Elizabeth couldn't see anything in the crushing darkness. She felt her breath running out and knew that she needed to get to the surface quickly.

Struggling with all her might Elizabeth pulled her self to the surface and greedily gulped the air into her burning lungs. She turned around in the water and saw that the ship had been torn to pieces by the wave. Swimming over to the wreckage Elizabeth found a board big enough to hold her. She climbed onto it and breathed "Jack." before she passed out.