A/N:

Well. It's been a long time since I've posted anything on here. Some of you might know me better as hopeh-wa, though...honestly, I haven't updated anything on that account in so many years that I've lost track.

This is just an attempt at a crossover that will probably get deleted in a day or two and refined, because I do this stuff to unwind between college assignments and I like to get this great, brilliant story going in my head before I really think it's good enough.

Anyway, this is just a crossover that sprung about randomly after thinking about it the last few days. Not everything's worked out yet, but I just wanted to get some characterization down.

Enjoy!

He couldn't help but acknowledge that it was a nice room. How he'd wound up in it, he hadn't the slightest idea, but it was hardly the worst place to end up in, come to that. In fact, despite the Benbow's outward shabbiness, it was really perhaps the nicest tavern on land he'd ever been in. This was certainly the nicest room he'd stayed in any time recently—except, perhaps, for his newfound captain's quarters aboard the Pearl.

Thinking about his hard-earned ship reminded him that there was still important work to be done in searching for Flint's treasures. He stirred himself, blinked once or twice, and finally addressed Sarah, who seemed to have been waiting patiently for a response all along.

"Well, lovely though I'm sure this whole time has been—not that I can truly remember, actually—I'm afraid I must get going. Lots to do, you know, got a lot left to see—"

"Oh, that's fine," she interjected, looking considerably more amused than he thought such a mundane situation called for. Was she perhaps just this lighthearted around all the inn's visitors? Somehow, he didn't think so. "I'll just ring this up on your tab, I guess."

He'd been inching towards the door from the moment she cut him off, but at this he promptly spun around and stared at her, brows furrowed. "Tab? What tab?" he repeated, wondering if he'd heard wrong. "From what I do recall, you promised me no charge for the drinks last night. However many of those I had."

"Mm," she said noncommittally. "I did, but I never said anything about free room and board…"

He stared a moment longer, and then it clicked into place. She'd tempted him with those free drinks so that he'd continue to drink until he was so tired that he crashed and spent the night there, at the Benbow. "That was a devious, conniving plan, love, and yet I can't wholly bring myself to disapprove." Against his will, in fact, he even looked somewhat impressed. Such a plain, sensible-seeming woman didn't look particularly shrewd or cunning, from what he could tell. But there you had it. She'd outwitted him fairly easily, all for the sake of getting her precious inn at least one more customer. "Alas," he continued, somewhat reluctantly, "I don't exactly have anything I can pay you with. At the moment, anyway. That's not to say I couldn't pay you back once I am able to…" He was leaning against the doorframe by now, just in case she decided to hit him with something, as was often the case when he revealed he hadn't a penny to his name. And of course, that last bit was a lie. He never paid anyone back for anything unless they wrested the money straight from his hands at the time.

Sarah Hawkins, however, looked strangely amused for a young woman who'd been so determined as to trick him into staying the night all supposedly for the benefit of her precious family inn. She revealed just what she was so entertained by, however, as she laughed and said, "Oh, well I thought that might be the case, you being a pirate and all."

His shoulder slipped past the doorframe so that he nearly fell over; stumbling a few steps to the side, he looked her up and down, immediately suspicious. "Now that, love, was a rude assumption, going about and calling a decent man a pirate with no proper proof." She was right, of course, but he didn't exactly want to let her know that because most of the time, admitting to being a pirate without your crew there to back you up and help you in the raiding and pillaging part of the job often just led you on a trip to the gallows. He didn't know quite how the laws worked in this strange world yet, but he didn't plan on sticking around long enough to find out via personal experience.

"Who's assuming?" she inquired innocently, turning away from him so that she could make the bed. That lass never let a moment go to waste if she could help it, he noted rather reluctantly; she was always on the move doing something beneficial. "You told me as much yourself, last night."

He winced, his hand flying subconsciously to the brand embedded atop his right forearm, the brand that had determined only a few years ago just what he was in the eyes of the Royal Navy—and consequently the rest of the world now. "…Just how drunk was I and what else did I tell you?" he demanded, voice coming out a little more harshly than intended.

If she noticed, she still didn't seem perturbed. She smoothed down the bed sheets, then looked up again, her blue eyes still twinkling even if she was now attempting to keep the corners of her mouth turned down in order to fake an appearance of some level of seriousness. "You didn't tell me much else, I promise. Your last name, and—" Here the corners of her mouth lifted back up and she broke off in a laugh. Apparently she couldn't stay serious for too long this morning. "—and something about Flint's trove on Treasure Planet."

He blinked once or twice more, watching her resist the urge to continue laughing, then flicked his gaze to the doorway he was standing in again, debating on whether to make a run for it or not. Finally, the urge to know what was so funny won out; he crossed his arms, perhaps unintentionally pouting (just a little), and stood his ground. "And just what, may I ask, has given you this…this set of giggle fits? If I may interject my opinion here, I simply fail to see the humor. It's like you've never had a drunk customer before."

"Well, for one, you really were very drunk…" As she tucked in the last part of the comforter, she glanced back at him and smiled. "And everyone knows that that old story about Treasure Planet is just a kids' story. I've never heard of a pirate who went off in search of a treasure mentioned in a fairy tale before."

"You know about Flint's trove?" He was too caught up by this particular detail to have noted the fact that she was still apparently getting amusement out of how intoxicated he'd been.

"I know the story, sure. But like I said, it's just fiction—"

He stepped forward; it was his turn to smile now, though the smile was far more knowledgeable and far more sardonic. "Have you ever actually encountered any proof that it does not exist, then?"

She paused, crinkling her nose up and furrowing her brows. "Well…no, I haven't. But I haven't seen any proof that it does exist, either."

"Then it is not, in fact, a fairy tale, love. We call tales like that legends, dear heart, and pirates, might I add, are the stuff of legends." He leaned forward and gave her a very knowing wink. As a man who had just had his dearest ship resurrected from the depths of the sea by none other than Davy Jones himself, he felt he had had quite a lot of dealings with legends lately. He was willing to believe in whatever needs be until he came across absolute proof that it did not exist. That was his logic—if ever, in fact, he'd had a logic.

This time, she seemed to be the one looking thoughtful. He wondered vaguely at the fact that she didn't blush or giggle or otherwise acknowledge that he'd given her such a sensuous expression up close. Most women he'd encountered lately simply fawned over that sort of thing. Sarah Hawkins, however, merely bit her lip and looked him up and down once again. "You really do believe in that kind of stuff, huh, Mr. Sparrow?"

Without hesitating, he replied, "Aye, lass. That I do."

"And you really have nothing with which you can pay your room and board?"

"Well—er, no." Somehow he didn't think the Benbow was the type of inn to accept forms of, ah, bodily payment the way the inns in Tortuga could, and often did, and so he didn't even offer. "Why do you ask?" he tacked on shrewdly.

"I was just thinking—sometimes our customers, when they can't pay...which happens every now and then, actually…they tell us stories. Something to keep us entertained while we work. But I haven't heard any stories since my father became too old to come in and I took up the work myself." She looked, for just a split second, terrifically unsure of herself, which he took as a pleasant sign. Thus far she'd seemed so calm or entertained by everything, it had been downright unnatural. Weren't women usually far more emotional? Certainly they were when they slapped him across the face. But then he thought on the fact that, if she was telling the truth (and she had no reason not to, unlike a pirate), then with her father no longer working beside her, she seemed to be all on her own. He hadn't spotted any siblings, any mother, not even any additional employees. For a young woman just striking out on her own, she was still unnaturally calm by his standards. But at least this proved she was human.

He processed the rest of her statement and gave her a blank stare in return. "You want me to pay you…with stories?"

"Well, you have some, I'm assuming? Look, I know you seem eager to leave, but you're going to hear the same story about Flint no matter where you go, and I think I have an old copy of the…legend…somewhere around here. So if you stay and tell me some of your stories, I'll tell you that one," she said, the words finally tumbling out in something of a rush. Sensible though she might be, always washing dishes and making beds and whatnot, she seemed headstrong in moments like these. He rather liked it.

But in the hopes of unnerving her, he kept up the blank stare a moment or two longer. She didn't react, save for eventually quirking an eyebrow, at which point he grinned widely. "Alright then. Have it your way. I shall stay if you tell me everything you know about ol' Flint and his trove, and in exchange…I can start out by telling you an excellent story about my ship."