DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise or any of the characters or dialogue associated with the film. They are the property of the Walt Disney Corporation.

AN: I seriously am running out of chapters...fair warning.

Well, that was interesting. I can’t turn around now, but I can feel her eyes watching me as I walk away. I can’t turn around because if I do, I might do something rash. The truth is, I should be creeped out that I know this girl I met yesterday before I met her. She should be creeped out, too. I can’t speak for her, but I know that I’m not. When she grabbed my hand, it felt so right. I’ve never experienced that before, not with any girl I’ve dated. Truth be told, I’m not even in to hand holding. Palms get sweaty and it’s just…I don’t know…personal. Funny, I have no problem sleeping with a girl, but holding her hand is getting way too personal. I really need to stop hanging out with Jack.

So, now is the test, really. I’ll wait in my favourite little shop for the girl of my dreams and see if she shows up. And, if she does, well I guess we’re just going to have to go from there. On top of the hand holding, I can’t believe I’m teasing her so much. I don’t tease girls. I haven’t teased a girl since primary school. Not my style. Regardless, there I am teasing her mercilessly. And there’s this ridiculous level of comfort that one should not have when one has only known the person for nineteen hours, besides the fact that we’ve been having sordid night time rendezvous for the past year or so, it’s…unnerving. Even more so is the very unnerving fact that I am going to be uncontrollably late for fencing. I’ve known this girl for nineteen hours and I am already placing her in priority over fencing, which has been my only priority for the past ten years.

I can see my orange reflection in the old glass windows of the door to Port Royal, thus named as all its coffee beans come from Jamaica. I’m a bit of a mess, the lightest shadow of stubble on my chin, but nothing to be alarmed about. I’m still presentable, I think as I push open the door to the shop, the little bell jangling madly.

“Will! You’re late today,” Ed, the shop owner, says. I smile automatically. Someone should really tell him that handlebar moustaches have been out of style for a hundred years now; I haven’t the heart.

“I am, it’s true,” I agree before settling onto a stool at the front.

“The usual, then?”

“No, actually. Just black, please.”

“Woo hoo hoo, rough night there, Willy?” Ed asks as he pours me a mug of steaming coffee, untainted in its darkness by cream.

“I guess you could say that,” I reply after some thought. It certainly hadn’t been an easy night.

“So,” Ed starts, as he leans against the countertop. “Must’ve been something bad to make you late for fencing.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Or something good,” I reply before taking a sip. The coffee is rich and that perfect temperature: just below scalding and just above warm. I let it roll down my tongue and ease down my throat, savouring every sensation with closed eyes. When I open them, Ed is staring at me with raised eyebrows.

“What could possibly be that good?”

“I only said that it could have been something good. It’s all up for debate right now.”

“Worth the wrath of old Vlad?”

I wince internally and externally. She better be worth the wrath of Vlad. Vlad has been my fencing coach since I was twelve. He is a man with an eye for talent and no need for money. Fencing with him was many things: convenient, cost-efficient, violent, emotional, and, most importantly, brilliant. I had been late for a practice once before, and only that one time. As punishment for my laziness, he’d forced me to fence without a glove and had purposefully gone for every hand hit he could. The next day my right hand was useless and he forced me to fence with my left. It’s a punishment I’ll never forget. But, I wasn’t thirteen anymore and I was among the top ranked in the United Kingdom – I doubt it strongly that he will take away my glove this time. There’s too much at stake; mainly, my place on the national team. With Olympics just next year and first of the qualifying internationals even closer, at two weeks, there was no way he’d damage my hand. A couple hundred push ups, maybe, but no nasty bruises. Besides which, he’d never be able to hit my hand now.

“Hopefully,” I say with confidence. Maybe a little less confidence than was originally intended, but confidence just the same. Ed chuckles at me, his handlebar moustache flapping wildly as he turns.

“A girl then,” he says. It’s not a question and therefore I deem it not necessary to answer and return to my coffee.

“Not Victoria, is it?” Ed asks, wiping up the far end of the counter. There is only one other customer in the shop to witness the handlebar inquisition, so I’m not that embarrassed when I nearly spit out my coffee.

“ Victoria?” I ask, laughing immediately. “Ha! No! She’s my mate, man!”

Ed shrugs non-committally. “She’s the only girl I’ve ever seen you with.”

“Because sometimes she runs with me on the days that Vlad forces us to train together.”

“Speaking of running,” Ed says, pausing to eye me over, what is it with men named Ed or Eddie anyway? “Doesn’t look like you have been.”

Bugger. Shit. Bugger. If Ed can tell, what will Vlad be like? Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, I imagine myself getting lashes for my insolence. Somewhere even deeper reminds me that I have, a long time ago. The thought makes me shudder so I stare down into my hot coffee, the colour reminds me of Elizabeth’s dark, dark eyes and I smile. Damn. She’s gotten to me.

“Well, I walked,” I offered weakly.

Ed looks a bit concerned and nods. “So, if you don’t come in tomorrow, I’ll call the bobbies then?”

I laughed but, really, he probably should…

“I hope she’s worth it, Will.”

It’s my turn to nod. Just then the little bell on door jangled a bit madly and my head turned automatically towards the sound. There was Elizabeth, hair still damp and drying in soft waves, wearing a pair of worn jeans and an oversized loose-knit sweater. Only she could make ‘comfortable’ look so disarmingly sexy. She smiles at me a bit shyly and I can’t help myself from smiling in return. All of the sudden Ed lets out a bellow.

“Lizzibet Swann!”

Liz’s smile grows wider as the burly man runs over to kiss her on both cheeks. Is Ed gay? I don’t know. Maybe all men named Ed or Eddie in my life are inherently gay. Come to think of it, if that’s the case, why do I know so many damn Eds?

“Hi, Ed,” she says softly, but brightly. Ed wraps his arm around her and pulls her to the counter.

“What’ll it be, doll? The usual?” Ah, so she comes here on a regular basis, too.

“No, actually,” she pauses to smile sheepishly, “Well, you know I’ve been waiting for the right occasion to try it…” she trails off and I look at her questioningly. Ed laughs heartily; I think it’s the only way he can laugh.

“Oh ho ho, Lizzie got drunk!”

Liz rolls her eyes and I watch Ed make his famous anti-hangover tea. Morning After Tea, as he likes to call it. She climbs onto a stool next to me and sets down her purse.

“Hi,” she whispers.

“Hi,” I whisper back, “Why are we whispering?”

She motions towards Ed and I smile at her, suppressing a laugh. He’s going to find out sooner or later.

“You know, Will,” Ed calls back behind him.

“Yeah,” I call back, trying really hard not to laugh.

“You should find a nice girl like Liz, here. They don’t come nicer,” he said as he turned around. Finally he notices that she’s sitting next to me and he looks from her shy, embarrassed face to my amused face. Ed shakes his head as he sets down her tea on the counter.

“She is worth it,” he says, finally, to me.

Elizabeth turns to me and cocks her head in the most adorable fashion. “Worth what?”

“Nothing,” I mutter, staring into my coffee while Ed chuckled.

“I’m worth nothing?” she asks, a note of amusement in her voice. I roll my eyes at her.

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just nothing you have to worry about.”

She nods in an attempt at understanding. Before she has a chance to ask anymore questions in front of Ed and before he has the chance to say anything further, I suggest that we move to a table.

The table she chooses is small and tucked in a corner, exactly the same table I would have chosen. After sipping her tea quietly, she asks me her first question.

“So how long have you been having the dreams?”

I think about my answer before speaking. The truth is I’ve been dreaming about pirate ships and Caribbean islands since I was a child. The dreams involving her are a fairly recent development in comparison.

“Before that,” I say at length, “What exactly happens in your dreams?”

She stares at her tea and turns an alarming shade of pink. Had her dreams gone further than mine? No fair.

“Well, sometimes I have these random dreams of somewhere in the Caribbean, but nothing seems solid enough for me to grasp at. The only solid part of a dream I’ve ever had was,” she pauses to look up at me and smile, “you.”

“It feels like ten years,” I said abruptly. “It always feels like I haven’t seen you, touched you, in ten years.”

She doesn’t say anything at all now, but I can tell that she knows exactly what I mean.

“Anyway, I’ve had them for a long time,” I say finally, answering her question.

“Really?”

“Yes. Well, not that particular one. That one only started happening when I moved into my current flat a year ago.”

“It’s the same for me!” she said excitedly, “I moved into my flat a year ago, and the dreams started. For awhile I thought that I was being haunted through dreams.”

I smile at her. “Perhaps we are.”

She nods silently and looks down at her hands again.

“So,” I say a little too loudly, “Tell me about yourself.”

“What?” she asks, confused.

“Well, what do you like? What do you do for fun? What’s your life story? I get that we have crazy reincarnation-like dreams, but what’s there to talk about there? I can’t explain it. I’m sure you can’t either, so let’s start from scratch.”

She just blinks at me and answers slowly. “Okay.”

“Hey, never mind, I can start. My name is Will Turner. Will is short for William, which of course was the name of my father. We won’t discuss my middle name, it’s of little importance. I grew up in Salford as my father was but a poor travelling salesman. Until, of course, he fell into some inheritance.

I went to a boarding school for a year. Sodding hated it except for fencing. My father died late in that year and my mother withdrew me from school. Fencing, however, was forever imbedded in my life.”

I paused. Was it overload? Too much for her to handle? No, I don’t think so, she’s looking at me in awe. Awe? Awe.

“So, I waste my life fencing away. I have a good chance to make it to the Olympics next year.”

“So, I guess you like to stab people for fun, then?” she asks. I smile.

“I guess you could say that. So, what’s your story?” I ask drinking a large gulp of coffee.

“Oh, uh, I grew up in the North of England. My father is a lord and so I also know the joys of boarding school, only for considerably longer than you had to deal with it. I’ve jumped around from Uni to Uni without any real direction. And, so, here I am in London, working a dead-end job and getting nowhere. At least I live in Notting Hill, no?”

I laughed. Wow, what a pair we were. I looked out the window and saw Victoria running past the shop. Bugger. With any luck she wouldn’t see me. With any luck she would tell Vlad I was sick. With any luck…Oh, bugger. She’s seen me. The bell jangled and I blanched, ducking my head down as Victoria approached. Elizabeth was regarding me with confusion. She turns and her eyes meet Victoria’s. Victoria looks from Elizabeth to me and frowns. Here it comes.

“Will, have you forgotten practice?” Her voice is, as always, stern and unrelenting.

“Of course I haven’t,” I reply staring into my coffee. I really want to tell her to sod off. I really want to take the piss out of her right now.

And then she just stands there staring at me. I’m going to lose it. Liz looks from me to Victoria and reaches for her bag.

“You should have told me that you have practice,” she says softly. She starts to stand up and there’s something sad about her whole demeanour. I want to reach out and kiss her. I want her to know that Victoria is only my mate. Only ever will be. Only ever was.

“Liz, I’m not governed by fencing,” I say as I reach out for her hand, suddenly and unexpectedly. Victoria gasps and quite frankly, I was surprised that I didn’t. Liz just blinks at me, trying to discern what I mean by that random statement.

“But, you just finished telling me…”

“I lied,” I say, again without thinking. “I said that I have a good chance. The truth is, I have a near guaranteed place on the Olympic team.”

Wow. I’ve never been this openly cocky.

“Will,” Victoria hisses.

“Can you give us a moment, Vic?” I ask a little harshly. She looks a bit hurt. Ah, she’ll get over it. She walks over to Ed, leaving me with Liz.

“Listen. I should go to practice, or I’ll never hear the end of it. But, I want to see you tonight…and not in my dreams.”

She smiles slightly and I notice a slight blush on her cheeks. Absolutely adorable. “Can I call you later?” I ask.

She reaches into her bag and pulls out a scrap of paper and a pen, scribbles her number down, and hands it to me. Without another word, she turns to leave and I watch her go. Goddamn fencing. Foiled again, as they say.

I look at Victoria, who is leaning against the counter looking smug. If she was a bloke, I’d take her outside and punch her in the face. Alas, she is not and so I cannot. Instead I shoot daggers at her with my eyes. She smirks in return, knowing that I won’t do anything to her. I get up and walk to her with a bemused smile on my face.

“Thank you, Victoria,” I hiss. Ed raises his eyebrows and walks away and Victoria’s smug grin falls from her face.

“You should be thanking me. Vlad won’t like to hear that you were almost late because of some bird,” she says harshly. Again, she’s smug.

“It’s not really your problem, is it?” I say before turning my back on her and heading out on the street. I can hear her following me and suddenly she’s beside me.

“Aren’t you going to change? To run?” she asks incredulously.

“No,” I answer flatly. I’m not in the mood to warm up. I’m in the mood to go in cold, and tear my muscles. I’m in the mood to ache later. I’m in the mood to have Elizabeth…er…Liz make me feel better later. Maybe a bit of a massage? Ah, hell. Maybe just humouring me with a smile will do. I notice that Victoria isn’t running and I turn to her.

“What?”

She looks away from me. “Are you alright? I mean, it isn’t like you to put a girl before fencing,” she trails off.

I stop and stare at her, bemusedly. “ Victoria. How many girls have you seen me with since you met me?”

She blinks and there’s something in her face I can’t quite discern. It almost looked like hurt, but that didn’t make much sense. What should she be hurt about? “A few,” she answers at length, “But none you’d put before fencing.”

I smile grimly, raising my eyebrows to make my point. “Exactly.”

Victoria looks more and more distinctly hurt and I can’t get my head around it. It’s only sodding fencing, after all. She turns from me without another word and runs. I know where she’s going and I’m following her slowly, despite the fact that my feet want to go back towards Teleford road, to that little ridiculously blue building, and wax poetic. God. Wax poetic. Pathetic.

I finally arrive at the fencing sale and Vlad is, as expected, furious with me. I’m in jeans, I’m not sweating at all, and I’m late. Punish me, Vlad. I’ve lost my focus. It’s distinctly centered upon one Miss Swann of whom I dream nightly. He’s screaming away at me with his mad Russian accent and I really couldn’t care less. The other fencers have stopped their drills and footwork to take in the spectacle. Vlad’s favourite getting the piss taken out of him is a rare sight indeed. Especially since out of all of us, I’ve the best chance to make it to the Olympics. My cheek is markedly unexpected by everyone.

I smile and look at my feet. What am I to say? I’m sorry? I won’t do it again? Suddenly, Vlad is upon me in the most terrifying way and I regret everything.

“You think this is FUNNY? YOU RISK EVERYTHING. YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME. Victoria tells me this is over a GIRL? You’d throw your life away for A GIRL? VILLIAM! GET YOUR WHITES ON!” he turns from me and his level of calm increases as he says his next set of lines with perfect malice, “I want one hundred fleches, Villiam.”

“What?” I ask before I can stop myself. He turns towards me again and smiles cruelly. Sadistic man.

“One. Hundred. Fleches,” he looks around the building, “Each the entire length of the building.”

There is an audible collective gasp from everyone in the room. I could bloody well die. In fact, I think he’d like that. Whatever. I’m fit, I can handle it. I stand up straight and stare him in the eye. “Right.”

Without another word, I turn to change into my whites. I can do this. I’m almost into the change room, the distinctive clanging of steel against steel restarting behind me, when Vlad calls towards me smugly, “I hope she’s worth it, Villiam.”

I turn around and glare at him and I can see Victoria standing behind him. She looks truly horrified. And she calls herself my mate, bloody cow. “She is.”

The look on Vlad’s face is one of sheer anger, but I turn away before he has a chance to say anything further. The other fencers are sparring happily with one another as I complete my fifty-eighth fleche. There is an incredible stitch in my side and I think my lungs have burst, but, hey good news! Only forty-two more to go!

I’m at ten to go two hours after I’ve begun. My legs feel like jelly, but at least I know the end is near. I haven’t stopped because I can feel Vlad’s eyes on me. He didn’t think I could do it. Didn’t think I’d follow through. Didn’t think she was worth it. She is. Nine more. God, I don’t know if I can do it. Elizabeth. Big brown eyes and sun kissed hair. I can do it. Eight more. Goddamn, this is killing me. Literally. Seven more. After I’m done, I can go to her flat and wax poetic. Oh, not that again. Pathetic. Six more. Bloody hell. Are those spots I’m seeing? No. No spots. Five more. I can do it. Only five sodding more. FOUR sodding more! The blood is pounding in my head and all I can see is Elizabeth. I can smell the Caribbean. Beautiful. I’ve never been to the Caribbean. Three more. I’m certain I’ve endured worse before. God, my epee is so heavy. Two more. Yes. Almost. Whoops. Almost tripped over my foot there. One more!

“LAST ONE!” I shout triumphantly. Now I realize that everyone is watching me. Vlad is watching me. I hate that expression. I hate it because I know it’s the one he reserves for idiots who overwork themselves. But, he was the one who gave me the punishment, wasn’t he? I mean, whose fault was it if I died? Apparently that shout was a bit too much for me because I can feel my legs give out beneath me. Oh god, the world is suddenly black with lovely multi-coloured spots. Brilliant, really.

“Water!”

“Open his jacket!”

“Villiam! VILLIAM OPEN YOUR EYES!”

I do as I am asked, but I can only see those brilliant spots. Someone has opened my jacket and someone is pouring water over my face. Lovely, cool water. I didn’t do it. Damn it. I should have kept my stupid mouth shut and I would have been able to. Someone is pouring water clumsily into my mouth. I’d love to reach up and take the bloody bottle from them to feed myself properly, but I can’t seem to move.

Eventually the spots clear and I can see Victoria poised with the water bottle and looking simply terrified. It’s just a little overheating. Nothing to worry about. Alright, I should probably worry. I snatch the bottle from her and attempt to sit up only to have Vlad push me back down.

“Why did you do that, Villiam?” he asked. I blinked.

“Because you told me to?”

“You know I would never expect you to do ONE HUNDRED FLECHES,” he says dramatically.

I frown at him. “You gave me a punishment.”

Vlad shakes his head at me and then pats me on the shoulder. “You bring her to the tournament.”

He gets up and walks away. I’m left with Victoria, who looks hideously guilty.

“I’m so sorry, Will.”

I don’t say anything because I have no desire to ease her conscience. And, because my mouth still doesn’t want to work quite properly.

“I had no idea,” she whispered.

“You heard him. He didn’t expect me to do it. I did it to myself.”

She doesn’t say anything; she only looks at me with that horrid expression again. What on earth can she possibly be hurt about? Bloody hell. I brush it off as guilt. I get up after a fashion because I can’t lie there all day. There is one Miss Swann who I simply must call. I stand and make my way to the change room in a series of ridiculously wobbly steps. It takes forever for me to undress, and when I finally make it to the showers I turn the water on cold and let my muscles tighten. A true glutton for punishment, I am, but I think it’s the only way I can ensure that I’ll be able to walk back towards my lovely Elizabeth.

Victoria seems to have waited for me, although I don’t know why. Perhaps more guilt. I pull out my mobile and that tiny scrap of paper and call the number. It rings a few times and is picked up by her sweet voicemail.

“You’ve reached LizzieBet Swann. Oi! Leave a message!” All done in a ridiculously overdone cockney accent. I wonder if she was drunk when she had done that. I left a brief message and provided her with my mobile number before hanging up and heading towards Victoria.

“Fancy a pint?” she asks. I realize that it must be about lunch time now.

“Not at all,” I reply. I have more important matters to attend to, like Miss Swann for example. Or, perhaps dying a slow and painful death in my tiny flat. Victoria looks disappointed and hurt…er…guilty again. Well, whatever. I’m too tired for this. Off I go, back to lovely Notting Hill.

Victoria is trailing behind me as I walk, but I haven’t the energy to ask her what she wants. Eventually, I stop and stare at her.

“What?” she asks.

“I was going to ask you that,” I say with a note of resignation. She looks at her feet. What the hell?

“I don’t know,” she says softly. She looks up at me, giant blue eyes unblinking. “I’m sorry, Will.”

I roll my eyes and shrug. “Whatever.” I start walking again.

“Where are you going?” she asks me.

“Do you really want to know?” I ask. I doubt that she does. I doubt she wants to hear how I’m going to crawl off to the flat of a girl I barely know and try to convince her to fall in love with me. I doubt that she wants to know that this girl has been haunting my dreams for years. I doubt she’d want to know how sodding pathetic I am.

“Yes,” she says quietly. I turn around to face her and frown.

“Fine. I’m going to crawl up Teleford Road in the most pathetic manner possible and ring the bell of the girl you so kindly chased away this morning. If she is home, I’m going to beg her to let me up. If she is not, I am likely going to die from doing ninety-nine fleches somewhere in Notting Hill.”

There was that expression again. What. The. Hell?

“Fine,” she says sharply. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

And, with that, she’s gone. Oh well, she’s not my girlfriend and I don’t feel it necessary for me to chase after her. At long last, I come up to Elizabeth’s ridiculously blue building. There are only two buzzers. One says M. Smithe and the other W. Swann. ‘W’? Whatever. Elizabeth’s last name is Swann, so I push it and wait. Nothing. So I push it again. Nothing. She’s not home. I collapse on her front step and rest my head in my hands. I’m too sodding tired to walk back to Portobello. I can wait. But, if she turns me away, well…I’m finished in more ways than one.