Title: Substance

Author: WickedRum

Disclaimer: I have no right to use these characters, Disney does.

Summary: The Empress and the Pearl's after the same booty. Will their captains reach an agreement:)

Set: post AWE.

Genre: romance/angst

Rating: PG.

Pairing: none really, just a little JE-ness.

Prologue

It was a galleon. Four masted, roomy and heavy. The Saint Michael to be exact, property of the East India Trading company, to be shielded by a navvy ship at all times. But there wasn't any doing so. There was the distant noise of a warship and another battling, but none in the immediate proximity of Saint Michael. The merchant ship was probably making a break for it away from the attacking pirates and here they were, practically running into the Pearl. So what's a pirate to do? Take what you can, give nothing back. Which, in this case, was musk, lacquerware and rum, very precious cargo indeed. The other two ships still seemed to be at it, so far you couldn't actually make out much, hopefully they'd be at it for a while yet, giving the Pearl enough time to disappear off the horizon and Jack'd been so convinced about it he already went below just to be walked in on by Gibbs not so much later.

"There'd be a problem," his first mate reported, "the other pirate ship? It's the Empress! She won the battle," he pushed his chest out proudly, as if Elizabeth's merits were partly his, "so what do we do about it? Her captain's got things to prove for her crew. Mrs. Turner will surely not be in the sharing mood," he smiled a bit amused, he was really curious to see what these two would come up with this time, sure they'd not going to fire at each other. "Surely we could outrun her if we tried," he added, "even with the extra weight."

"But she's not the giving up type is she?" Jack leaned back on his chair, "drop the anchor. We've got some good leverage to negotiate with don't we?" He looked at Gibbs cockily, looking forward to meeting and playing cat and mouse with Elizabeth.

"Aye, captain, that we do. She'll have a bit of a surprisal." Gibbs agreed, smirking.

Tbc