A/N: A few things. One, this isn't a Mary Sue. Don't tell me it is, or I'll ask you to run her through a litmus test, and show me where she makes the grade. :-P
Two – the name, which I know will set people buzzing, was fairly common in colonial times. Also frequent were; Hope, Charity, Mercy, Peace, and Faith. Temperance is..my little joke.
Three – This is set about fifteen years or so before the film itself. Five years before the mutiny, and five years (or so) after Will's birth. Therefore, Jack is Captain, doesn't know the co-ordinates, and still has his ship. And a motley crew, including his first mate, Barbossa.
The tavern was smoky, dark and filled with raucous laughter. Just the way Temperance Edith Smith liked it. She adjusted the hood of her cloak, and made sure the folds fell comfortably enshrouding her figure then sallied forth to buy herself a pint. She seated herself, and waited until the barmaid, currently in the lap of a more inebriated customer, caught a flash of the gold of her coin, and served her. In this place, gold, or being a pretty lay was the only way to get served, packed as it was with bodies, heaving with drunken men and flirtatious whores, all looking for a good time.
Not that she had much gold left, but enough to chink her purse and flash in the light of the dripping candles and fire. In fact, blast them to the seventh layer of hell, Temperance dug around in her purse, she had only three gold coins left. A couple of coppers rested forlornly at the bottom of the little bag. She closed her left hand around the purse thoughtfully, drumming the fingers of her right hand on the table top, as the barmaid set down the ale.
Work was always forthcoming on Tortuga, for a crewman. Odd though, Temperance had always avoided the place, returning with reluctance. Damn and blast them further for leaving her here of all places. Still, the better it was to find some luckless crew one man down, and get taken on until she could move on to the next port. This place was far too well known for her liking to stay here more than a day or so. She'd already spent a couple of them sleeping off an excess of ale that she'd steeped herself in.
But now – Now was not a time for work. The men who were all about, possible crewmates had their eyes glazed with lust, for drink, for women, for a brawl. Tonight, it was about getting pissed, and in Temperance's esteemed opinion, ale was the only thing to spend your last coins on, so that you were drunk when you contemplated life with nothing.
Not that that was unusual for her. Nothing, she'd grown up with. It was just an uncomfortable situation, and comfort was also something high up Temperance's list of priorities when on the wrong side of the law.
A man jostled her, and she grunted her irritation, shoving him back as hard as she got. He lurched over to the other side and was violently ill near another table, which distracted attention from herself. It suited her, she propped her elbow on the table, her chin on her hand, and stared into the distance, thoughtful. There was always Gibbs, the man who scraped together crews and good-for-nothings with a quickness that she could do with. However, and this realisation was coupled with a heavy sigh, the prospect of finding a crew without the general... distaste for members of her sex, that knew how to steer the bloody ship was unlikely. Wealth was needed to buy herself a decent enough ship that others would ignore their preferences in order to come aboard. And she'd damn well liked her..that ship.
She sighed again, and swirled the dregs of her ale morosely. She didn't have enough to buy another ale, and pay her debt at the hostel, and began debating the relative merits of another beer to make things foggier so she didn't have to think about them, coupled with a bed with the pigs, or a comfortable bed to wake up in come sunrise. Ale was just about winning out when someone's shouts at the back of the inn rose above the din, and everyone fell silent. Like anyone else, Temperance looked up.
"The navy, they're out there!" the boy, he couldn't be more than thirteen, the owner's son, said breathlessly. "Comin' in to the island. They're ready to catch anyone suspected of piracy." Like anyone else who had been pirating long enough to have gold, Temperance had been caught before. And like anyone else, she feared the rope around her throat more than she did a drunken pirate crew. She'd spent nights before amongst them, and her death dangling in front of her made her reach to her neck automatically, swallowing.
Blast it, she had nowhere to run to. There was mass movement of the men, rising towards the doors and to the bay. They had to get to their ships before the navy, sighted on the horizon, came in and caught them. Blessing the unlikely luck that she'd had the foresight to wear skirts – as a protection against the locals if she were caught, a woman in skirts was far less suspect than a woman in shirt and hose – she hurried too, hoping to make for the rowing boat across to the next island before the navy got close enough to question a woman out alone this late.
Pressed against others, she stuck out her elbows, digging in as she pushed and fought her way outside. She ran, holding her skirts away from her feet in a desperate grip, and stumbled, growling curses at her own gender.
Ragetti was somewhat bewildered, and abandoned. Pintel had moved ahead of him, toward the bay, the boat and the Pearl, and he knew that if he were caught, the Code would stop anyone holding back on his behalf. He looked about, searching for a way to get out, and saw someone fall nearby, and a flurry of skirts and petticoats fly up. His face brightened. If he had an armful of wench, one of the locals' daughters, the navvies couldn't shoot at him, for fear of killing an innocent girl.
He dived, before the girl had managed to pick herself up, and slinging an arm about her waist, hauled her against his side and carried her, running for the shore. She flailed and kicked, obviously cursing his existence, but in the roar of men running and shouting, he couldn't hear a word. Panic building, he 'borrowed' an empty rowing boat, flung her across the other side, and began rowing out to the Pearl, not noticing that she had gone still, and silent.
As he pulled up alongside the Pearl, the other men of the crew were being hauled up and in, the anchor churning up through the waves. He grabbed the girl around the waist, and clung onto her, pulling himself up the side of the boat with a rope. She'd serve to get them out of the bay if necessary, and then a fair bit of booty in the form of ransom if she was rich enough, or dumping on the nearest island after the crew had had their fun.
Barbossa raised his eyebrows at Ragatti's bit of skirt as he pulled the man over the side and into the ship. "Look, Cap'n," he called over his shoulder. "Woman aboard." He shook his head at Ragatti. "Fierce unlucky, that."
"'S protection," Ragatti said nervously, dropping her gently to the ground. She didn't move, unconscious from the blow to the head. Jack Sparrow moved past them on his way to the wheel, and glanced down.
"Put her below," he said, with a wry little smile. "Some of the men didn't get what they paid for. Seems to be..serendipitous, wouldn't you say, Barbossa?" He strode off before the first mate could answer, not seeing Barbossa's scowl.
"Bootstrap," the first mate clapped the passing man on the shoulder, "Take her below." Surprised, the man nodded, and lifted the cloaked figure in his arms easily, and disappeared from sight into the inside of the ship. "Ragatti," Barbossa ordered, his voice stern, "To y'place, boy. We might need to use the cannons to get out o'here."
Hurrying to his place, Ragatti forgot the girl he'd used as a shield in the flurry of action and arms. Temperance was clean out cold as she was laid on a bed in the quarters below, by the pirate.
A/N: Next chapter – they find out the woman a'board is no 'girl', and Temperance is more than relunctant to share her story.
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