Disclaimer: I do not own anything except a car.

A/N: Hi! I've finally decided to do an Alternate Universe fic. Everything in the movies has happened up until AWE and all of my stories that take place during and before the movies have still happened. After this brief prologue, we will pick up when our heroes first set sail out of the Locker after picking up Jack. But what if they were in the Locker for much longer than the movie?

Aye, there be more swine here in this little pub than be in all them pens what reek in the back, to be sure. It sours the blood when some toothless git stumbles over and starts with the sweet-talking. Alcohol. Does wonders for one's confidence, does it not? Aye. Course, I was never one to shy away from a strong pint down my gullet, neither. The devil's beverage, says them teetotalers. Mother's milk, says I.

Tortuga was never a place of high class. Was never meant to be. Ever since the kings and all them rich fancy folk on high formed their treaties, men just like them that whistle at me now decided to hell with the rules and started new lives for themselves at sea. Pirates, me dear. This was the age of pirates, third oldest profession, I'd say, third to prostitution and the spying. Was one of them once, was I, and then I met that cursed Tia Dalma. Ambitious to the hilt and twice as cunning. Well, the succubus reeled me to her and punished me good for a life of drinking and fighting—not like she punished Davy Jones, no. I got off far easier. No. My task was a simpler one, said she. I was to be a guardian angel.

"This aint' the face of no angel," I had said, shaking my head at her. "This ain't even the face of an intermittent church-goer."

"Don't mean a thing to me," said she, and from that time on, for twenty years total, I got to go from ship to ship, whichever she tells me, and look after all those on board.

Did I say punishment? Belay that. Methinks she could be listening in on our little conversation. Compared to dyin' of pneumonia in that jail or facing a hanging, I'd gladly use these little wings in the back of me to do some good in the world.

But it was one ship in particular, one assignment, that was worth the remembering. T'was on the tail end of my service to her, that I had but three more years to go and I could have me life back, t'would be as if I had never left the world, she said. I'd seen enough magic by then not to blink at that, but what she said next, well, that was still a good finger-in-the-eye, I'll tell ye that.

See, I was in prison, next to Anne, waiting for me hanging or for the miscarriage to destroy me, whichever came first, and I would have welcomed either one at that point, too sick and too filthy and too tired to care for much else.

"Ye want out?"

There she was, her green teeth and bloodshot eyes staring me in the face.

"Who are ye?" I had breathed, so hungry and exhausted I could barely lift me head out of the dirty hay.

"I am da sea. I am many forms. I can take you away from all dis, Mary Read."

"I'm yours." I was a might surprised she understood me, seeing as I had coughed it out, the phlegm sticking to me lips. Sounded a bit Faustian in hindsight, but when you're layin' there dying and a hand offers you a leg up, ye just see if ye don't take it.

She brought me back, said I would be her angel, to spare as many as I could from falling victim to Davy Jones, her mistake. But like I said, it was on the tail end of me service to her that she summoned me to the swamp shack once more.

"Ye be goin' to da Locker soon."

"Davy Jones' Locker? Don't even see how an angel can beat that, miss, 'less you count on clipping me wings?"

"I will be goin' der soon with a crew, and you will be der for dem when dey need you."

Now, I was a right puzzled I was. If they's already in the Locker, what use would they have for me? Oh here, dear, I'll get the waitress to bring ye some ale. Come sit by me in the candlelight. Ye look sober enough to appreciate what I'm about to tell ye. There I was, stunned stupid as a newborn calf, to know that I would be diving straight into the Locker for a crew I didn't even know.