I had this posted before and I took it down, but I wanted to give this another shot. It's a pirate!AU, but I think it'll be a lot of fun. Everyone's involved! Don't worry, I'm working on my other fics but I've had a writers block because this fic has taken over my brain and I find the best way to remedy this is by writing it out. So here we go!!

Please Read and Review!

The tavern was filled with people, drinking, laughing, and flirting with prostitutes. Usual activity for a place of this reputation at this time of night, and an unsavory place for anyone who didn't know their way around the world. Luckily for Rose Tyler, she was surrounded by people who not only knew their way around the world, but ordered it around.

"Jack's getting lucky," Donna mused, watching as the captain won yet another game of dice. Ianto, his first mate, sat next to him, give warning glances to whatever girl thought she'd earn her nightly pay off the increasingly wealthy man.

"And he's certainly not cheating," the Doctor replied, catching the tiny flick of the wrist that sent one pair of dice up his sleeve as another came tumbling out on the other arm.

"Like Harkness could win by playing fair," Mickey snorted into his glass, glancing longingly at one of the few girls in the room that wasn't to be bought. Unfortunately the Doctor had very strict rules about such liaisons, and he'd have to spend a week on Jack's ship doing manual labor before his own captain would even consider allowing him back onboard the Tardis.

"Have you met your contact yet?" Owen asked, signaling for his own girl to wait a few more minutes. While the Doctor didn't allow that sort of thing with his crew, Owen didn't sail with him. He sailed on the Torchwood, where Jack's only rules were to follow his orders and not to shoot him, and the latter one had an annoying habit of being disregarded.

"Go ahead, you horny git," Donna said, rolling her eyes. She was the Doctor's first mate, although she never needed her position to get her orders followed. Donna didn't need to use the Doctor's wrath as a motivation, her own was more than enough.

"He is taking a long time," Rose said as the Torchwood's doctor left the table, a dark slender girl with a dress falling off her shoulder on his arm.

"She," Martha corrected, resting her head on Tom's shoulder. "We're meeting with an old friend."

"The Professor?" Mickey asked. "Bad idea, mate. She always has other motives."

"She also has information," the Doctor said. "And I want to know who is attacking ships in the Caribbean."

"The one that burns ships with captives still on them?" Rose asked, shivering when the Doctor nodded. "I thought that ended when I was a little girl."

"It did." Donna replied. "But they've started up again."

"Power vacuum. Ever since the…" Mickey trailed off as the Doctor's look turned to him, eyes sharpening. "…battle, I mean. We'll stop them."

"Fifteen years," Donna sighed into her mug. "Feels like forever ago. I was still on the family estate."

"Oh yes, how could England forget Donna Noble?" a new voice said as an older woman approached their table, pulling out her pistol and her shiv and placing them on the table in front of the Doctor. "The noble Lady who ran away to become one of the Doctor's men."

"The world needs the Doctor's men more than it needs another person in the aristocracy," Donna replied with a shrug.

"Hmm," the woman replied, lips twisting in amusement before she turned to the Doctor. "The Dread Pirate Doctor, what a pleasure."

"Docherty," the Doctor replied, with a nod. "Good to see."

"Yes, I'm sure." She took the chair Mickey offered her, glancing at Rose as she sat. "I see you have another crew member."

"Doesn't matter, does it?" the Doctor asked, taking a small sip of the wine in front of him. It was small partly because he wasn't one to consume alcohol, and partly because while it was the best liquid in the limited collection it wasn't anything appetizing.

"No, only my payment." The woman held out her hand expectantly.

"You get paid after you tell us what we need to know," Donna said, pulling a small leather pouch out of her shirt, wrapping the drawstrings around her wrist.

"What is it you want?" Docherty asked, leaning back in her chair. "I don't have all night and I do have a family to get back to."

"Who is plundering ships in the Caribbean?" the Doctor asked smoothly, ignoring the woman's impatience.

"You want to know that?" Docherty asked, her eyes flickering with fear, a rare thing for a creature such as herself. "I don't know."

"You bloody hell do know, and you're going to tell us!" Donna exclaimed, slamming her fists down on the table. "We didn't endure all night in this rut for you to play a game!"

"Donna…" the Doctor murmured warningly as Docherty shook her head.

"I am not. I'm more afraid of him than I am of you. I know your code Doctor, and I haven't done anything wrong."

The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out another purse and tossed it at her. She hesitantly peered inside it, gasping to see that every coin was gold. "Does that buy you some confidence?"

"I…" she trailed off, her eyes flicking down at the bag again. "I can't tell you. But I can give you coordinates."

"That's it?" Donna scoffed. "Great help you are."

"And a warning," Docherty said. "What ever you do, don't engage in outright battle."

"We're very good at what we do," Martha finally said, breaking her silence.

"He's better. No one wins against that ship, or its crew."

"What's the ship?" Tom asked, curious.

"The Toclafane."

The Doctor sat upright, face draining of color. "What?"

"I've said too much," Docherty said quickly, grabbing her weapons and payment off the table. "If he ever catches you, Doctor, we've never met."

"Is it him? The… him?" The Doctor asked quietly.

Docherty hesitated. "I won't say. I can't say, and that says enough."

"We've never met," the Doctor finally said and the woman all but ran from their table, pushing through the crowd of drunks until she was through the door and into the night air.

"Who are you talking about?" Donna finally asked, breaking the silence that reigned over the table.

"No one," the Doctor replied before shaking his head again. "Can't be the same man."

"Doctor," Donna insisted, but the Doctor only stood up.

"I'm returning to the ship," he announced, pulling his coat on. "Be ready to sail by dawn."

"What-" Rose began, but the Doctor had already slipped across the room and out the door.

"I don't like this," Martha muttered. "He never acts like that."

"No," Donna admitted, her eyes tracing his path. "It's not a good thing."

"Have any of you heard of the Toclafane before?" Rose asked nervously. None of them had, not even Tom, the boy who grew up in a pirate's port. "Then… how would he know the name?"

"He's not like us," Donna shrugged. "He was brought up to know the sea."

"Where?" No one looked Rose in the eye.

"Doesn't matter," Mickey finally said, finishing his drink.

"But-" Rose began but Martha shook her head.

"We're not telling you his story," she told the younger girl softly. "He will, eventually."

"Fine, don't tell me." Rose leaned forward, frowning. "But what does it mean if the Doctor's scared?"

"It means," Donna replied with a sigh, chugging the rest of her drink, "That we are in for one hell of a time."

Please Review!!!!!!