Disclaimer: Fifteen men on a Dead Man's Chest shouldn't sue me, please.

A/N: Whoo! I saw Dead Man's Chest and I just HAD to slap Squirrel in there. So, here she is then, in the movieverse rather than the fictionverse. A little bit more 'realism', this time. Yay for Squirrel! This chapter whipped off quickly in the wee hours of the morning coz I just had to write this down.

DMC spoilers. Obviously.

The story so far: A young amnesiac girl from Tortuga escaped the clutches of her abusive uncle and cousin in order to sail with the man of her dreams. With nervous mannerisms such as stuttering, in addition to her preferred diet of nuts and her ability to climb anything with ease and speed, she was known only as Squirrel. She escaped from Tortuga on the Black Pearl, the ship of Captain Jack Sparrow, whom the girl had admired and loved secretly from afar. On her escape, Squirrel stopped a bullet for Jack Sparrow with the amulet her father had left her - a silver doubloon. Her parents had been a merchant and a runaway member of the aristocracy, and they had died - violently killed in a drunken brawl by jealous pirates - many years ago. Squirrel, as she had been witness to that traumatic sight of their deaths, went into shock and forgot most everything about her past life. With nothing holding her to Tortuga, she went with Captain Sparrow.

There was no secret compartment in that coin. There was no visit to Port Royal. There was no hunt for the lost treasure owed to Squirrel. There was no 'grand adventure'; just base piracy and the exploitation of Squirrel's gift in the taverns and ports along the journey. There was no realisation of love between the girl and the pirate captain she idolised.

She was a member of his crew. And that was enough.

"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum…"

Squirrel looked down from her position in the crow's nest, to where Gibbs weaved uncertainly across the deck, singing to himself and his near-empty bottle of rum. The man did not seem to be bothered by the mood of uncertainty and expectation. Squirrel felt herself getting annoyed - but then, what did she expect from Gibbs? Without Anamaria around to keep order, the man was as he had always been: an undisciplined lout. Hells, all of them were.

In the fog ahead, the Turkish prison loomed. Squirrel lifted her telescope and watched with a sick feeling in her stomach as men on a distant shore tossed coffins into the sea. Jack, where are you? You said this wouldn't take long!

"Drink, and the devil had done for the rest… yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum! Ah ha ha!" She heard Gibbs' song cut short by drunken laughter and the sound of rum being swiftly emptied from a bottle. Without warning, through the thick night fog, was the sound of a large brass gong. It was as though it were an omen of doom.

And then the crows came.

"Ah!"

Swooping low and with a dark purpose, they converged on the Pearl, brushing past Squirrel's face with tenebrous wings and grating cries for blood. She cried out in alarm and lost her focus as she brushed at the air, trying to keep the birds away from her. "G-go and f-f-feed on the d-d-dead, you mag-maggots!"

"Are you alright, miss?" Gibbs called up to her, sounding frightened and sober. Omens always tended to do that do him.

"I'm f-fine." Squirrel said, blushing. None of the crows had been attacking her. She felt foolish. Gibbs fears were nigh contagious sometimes. With a determined set to her mouth, she re-focused the telescope, watching the coffins as they bobbed in the sea. 'The only way a man leaves this prison is in a box', Jack had said. 'No worries.'

Another one of the man's crazy schemes, Squirrel thought to herself. And for what, this time? With a touch of sadness, another voice added, He would have told you about it, once upon a time. But now? Now he's too wrapped up in himself to notice you. Too caught up in his 'games' to care about anyone but himself.

Shut up, Squirrel wanted to tell the voice, but she knew it was true.

In the distance, a crow caught Squirrel's eye. She followed it with the glass, watched as it landed on one of the coffins and began to tap with its beak, as though it were decay knocking politely at the coffin's doorway.

Squirrel almost laughed out loud when the bird suddenly exploded. Jack! She lowered the telescope, judging the distance he was from the Pearl with her bare eye. Feeling the warm rush of joy colouring her face, Squirrel called down to Gibbs.

"Here h-h-he comes!"

"Not quite according to plan."

"Complications arose, ensued… were overcome."

"But you got what you came for?"

Squirrel smiled down at Jack as he climbed aboard, but he didn't see her. He was too busy privately gloating about his latest acquisition. The mood of the ship was expectant, but Squirrel could tell she was the only one genuinely happy to see their captain back. She stayed in the rigging and watched, too nervous to make herself part of the crowd. Too worried that she would be associated with their fledgling mutiny.

Jack may not have noticed, but Squirrel was no fool. She'd been observing things all her life - very few details ever escaped her. Though Jack had a decent-sized crew aboard the Pearl, these men were anything but decent. They were pirates through and through - greedy and self-absorbed.

Gibbs cleared his throat as Jack stood surrounded by dark-faced men. "Captain, I think the crew - meaning me, as well…"

But not me, Squirrel said, adjusting her seat in the rigging and smiling down at her captain. She reached for her shanghai and readied her ammunition, just in case things got ugly.

"…were expecting something a little more… shiny."

The crew's mood darkened. Yes, something shiny. Something to buy the food and drink they were forced to now ration in half-shares. And it had been months since there had been any real 'honest pirating'. Even Squirrel could feel the beginnings of desperation nipping at her. But she wouldn't mutiny. Not against the man she loved.

"Shiny?"

"Aye, shiny."

"Is that how you're all feelin' then? That dear old Captain Jack has not held up his part of the bargain?"

I don't feel that way, Jack. You can always count on that!

Beside her, crawling down the ropes, a small but well-dressed bundle of fur was also observing the scene below. Squirrel smiled at it. "Evening, Jack," she whispered. The monkey leapt over to sit on her shoulder and grin at her… though that wasn't really necessary, as the undead critter didn't possess much in the way of lips… or skin, for that matter.

"I wonder what it is that the captain went after," she mused, half to herself. Jack grinned again, and took her wondering as a direct order. It leapt out of the rigging with a screech, sending those on the deck into a panic. Especially Jack Sparrow.

He grabbed a pistol and shot at the monkey, which was unharmed but flung aside. Squirrel winced, but there was no real harm done. There never was. Marty crossed the deck and recovered the item Jack had retrieved from the Turkish prison. "It's a key."

"No!" Jack sashayed over and held it up for all to see. "Much more better. It is a drawing of a key."

Squirrel frowned. A drawing of a key? Jack risked his life for a scrap of tattered oilskin? It must be more valuable than he was willing to let on.

From the rigging, Squirrel watched as Jack laid a plan of action. And she was afraid of what she saw.

From her perch above Jack in the rigging, she watched as he pulled his precious compass from his belt and laid a course. "Let's set sail in a general… that way… direction." His voice wavered with his compass.

"Captain?"

"Come on, hup-to, set sail; you know the drill." He sauntered off, leaving the crew to scramble to their stations.

Quietly, Squirrel slipped down from the ropes and moved on quiet feet to Gibbs and Marty, two of the few original remaining crew members of the Black Pearl. She stood at the railing with themm looking out to sea in the 'general-that-way direction' Jack had indicated.

"Have you noticed lately," Marty asked, "That the captain seems to be acting strange?"

Both Gibbs and Squirrel looked at him.

"… er?"

Gibbs snorted. "Aye. Jack Sparrow not even knowing his own course? Mark me: what bodes ill for Jack Sparrow bodes ill for all of us."

Squirrel shrugged nervously, wanting to contradict Gibbs but being able to find no excuse.

There was no denying the way that compass had wavered.

"We'll shore up for a while," Jack sauntered across the deck, one hand flapping foppishly, "Pick up fresh supplies, scrape the hull of barnacles and what-not, and then we'll sail on. Keepin' t' the shallows, of course. What say you? Aye?"

Squirrel, just another face in the crowd, was as unconvinced as the rest of the crew. But she knew something they didn't.

For years, watching Jack Sparrow in the tavern of Tortuga, she had been unable to 'read' him as she had been able to read the other drunkards and fools who set foot in her uncle's tavern. She never knew what cards he would play, what women he would court, what fights he would start or avoid.

But now, he was like an open book to her. Squirrel could read the captain like any other man. And she did not like what she saw.

"On this island, the most we'll find is coconuts." The crew were muttering. "And fruit. And water."

Jack just grinned and waved on his feet. "Aye! Healthy stuff." He turned and looked at the fast approaching shore. "It'll do us all some good."

Liar! Squirrel's senses screamed. He's been to this island before… or, at the very least, knows of something here other than just food and fresh water.

"You heard the captain," Gibbs called, "Get to work! Prepare to beach!"

Squirrel slid through the dispersing crew like blue-grey mercury until she came as close to Jack as she dared. "H-h-how did you hurt y-y-your hand?" She asked gently, pointing to the strip of cloth he had wrapped around said hand.

Jack's reaction was instant. He pulled his hand to his chest and turned to glare at her. "Miss Grey, did I not just give an order to the crew? And are you not part of this crew? So why are you not preparing to land, hrm?"

"What are y-y-y-y…" Squirrel felt herself blushing as Jack looked laconically at her, obviously amused by her attempts to speak clearly. She tried again, remembering Ana's advice. Breathe deep, take your time. Concentrate. "What are you afraid of?" Squirrel murmured.

"At this rate," Jack said, sauntering off like nothing in the world mattered but himself, "I'm afraid we'll all be starvin' to death if we don't get some supplies aboard. So get to it, lass!"

Squirrel took a breath, then hurried after the captain, pushing into his path and stopping him. He looked down at her, amused but annoyed by her insistence. Squirrel felt herself blushing as she moved closer to him.

"What happened last night?" She asked. "You woke us all for a reason." She looked at him with a critical eye. "You were s-s-screaming. Panicked. What happened?"

Jack carefully composed his face, but there was no hiding the fear in his eyes. "Nightmare, I suppose."

Squirrel mutely shook her head. That had been no nightmare. Even her own nightmares hadn't made her run screaming around the ship. Dreams were dreams. What Jack was frightened of was something much worse. Besides. Jack had come from below. When Squirrel had last seen him before catching a few winks of sleep in the crow's nest, he had been heading for his cabin with a bottle of rum in each hand. He'd not slept in his cabin. He'd gone below, and something in the bowels of the Black Pearl had… visited him. Squirrel was sure of it; there was no other explanation.

I know you, Jack Sparrow. More than ever. I know you, and that frightens you. But not as much as what haunts you. What did you see? Why are you so lost? And what are you trying to hide?

Jack pushed past Squirrel, not even deigning to look at her. Squirrel felt his hand brush against the old burn on her shoulder, and both winced and blushed. The first was for the memory of the pain that had been; the second was for the pain still there, unrealised and raw.

It had been a grand thing, at first. Piracy on the open ocean with Captain Jack Sparrow! A dream come true. But now, months had passed and the whole thing had descended into tedium and complacency. Jack even seemed to have forgotten the bullet she now wore.

Squirrel fingered the dented silver coin absently. It had been a daring - stupid! - thing to do. But she'd stopped a bullet for the captain. Her captain. She'd saved his life, and then he'd dived into the sea to save hers. Squirrel sighed, still harbouring something dully painful in her heart for this rogue pirate captain, but knowing she'd be a fool to try for anything more.

"I don't see you moving, Miss Squirrel! Chop-chop, love, time's a wasting!"

With another sigh, Squirrel clambered up into the rigging, checking the knots and watching as the island came ever closer, her thoughts lost in a soft white haze.

A/N: More coming gradually! -edit- This chapter updated a tad to match the quality of other chapters. Sortof.