A/N: This story takes place between Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest. Also, this is the very first time I've ever written about pirates, so if things are strange, please don't hesitate to correct me. I'm a big girl and would rather learn from my mistakes instead of repeating them endlessly.
The Poseidon's Queen bobbed gently now on the quiet waves, but all was not well with her crew. Poseidon himself had spent two nights dueling with Zeus and all of the heavens. Men had been sacrificed—swallowed whole by the hungry sea, while others had clung desperate and screaming to be spared. Her captain had fought a losing battle and won, and now she stood on the main deck, her disheveled red curls awash in her face, and her grey eyes narrowed over the bleak horizon.
Though they had survived the storm, it wasn't likely they would survive long enough to find land. The mainmast had been shattered by the storm, the splinters washed to sea with so many of the gape-faced men that had unwillingly given their lives in sacrifice. She surveyed the shabby remains of her crew, and for the first time in four years, she felt her eyes begin to sting with oncoming tears. She blinked them furiously away, glad that the sky and sea both misted them with sprays of rain, because if a single man suspected their captain might be crying, she'd find herself in the bowels of Poseidon herself. Gritting down on her back teeth, she cupped one hand beside her mouth and called up to the lookout, "Any sign of land?"
"None, Cap'n," Smilin' John Jenkins hollered back. "Not a sight to see for miles."
"Bloody hell," she muttered under her breath. Didn't it just figure? She had come so close to the Black Pearl two days prior—it had been just within her reach, but then the storm had hit, tearing their entire world apart, and putting the Pearl leagues out of their grasp.
"Captain MacCreedy," a voice from the forecastle deck hollered and she turned. "Bad news, Captain."
Bad news. She couldn't stand the sound of more bad news, she squared her jaw and leaned forward. "There better be a solution mixed in with that bad news ye be bringing me, ye dirty bilge rat."
"Of course we are working on a solution," he immediately replied, nodding furiously to keep her happy. "It seems we've got a tear on our left, the water's pouring in and the last of our supplies are. . ."
Captain "Lil Red" MacCreedy scowled with rage, and before finishing he scurried back below without another word.
Lil wanted to shout her rage out to Poseidon himself, but she knew it would do no good. It was their lot, and they would see it through to the bitter end, if that was what was destined. Though she'd give anything for the chance to find him again, her father. . .
Four years ago, it had all seemed so easy. After hacking off the length of her brilliant, red hair, she'd dressed herself as a young boy, and set out to sea to find her father. The first ship to take her aboard had been the Maiden Green. She worked long and hard to gain the respect of the crew, until she'd lost the button on her shirt and Captain Eric Heinlen quickly discovered that "L'il Red" MacCreedy weren't quite the lad she pretended to be.
Outraged, the crew demanded justice, but Captain Heinlen was a noble man, and since Lil had provided them with the service she signed on to do, he agreed to let her stay aboard, but the price she had to pay was far greater than she'd ever dreamed. Night after night she had to fight them off, men who had once worked honorably beside her. One cornered her below deck and covered her mouth with one filthy hand while working his way into her trousers with the other. The first time she was raped was the last. She lay in a huddle sobbing until the sun came up, and resolved that she would never endure such hideousness from a man again. She faced that next day bleary eyed and distant, and the next time one came at her in the dark like that, she was ready for him. She found that the only way to stave them off was to fight dirty, and so one by one, she scarred them all in ways no man should ever be scarred. Eventually they left her alone.
Heinlen took note of her after that, but it was with love's urgings more than desire. He admired her strength, was always impressed with her wit, and knew in his heart that under his tutelage, one day she'd be one hell of a captain herself. He began to invite her to his cabin for dinner, and there the wooed her with conversation and impressed her with stories about the sea, and a fierce black ship and red bearded pirate he had once dodged. Eventually, circumstances wore them both down and while Lillian shared her bed with the ship captain, the captain shared his knowledge with her.
One calm night while she slept in the captain's bed alone, the ship was raided by pirates. Dragged from the bed by her hair, chaos raged on around her. She was pressed to her knees before a tall man with a red-beard and sharp grey eyes like the sea at storm. "And what have we here?"
"We found 'is lit'l girl asleep, Cap'n" the wild-eyed, rat-faced, little man who stood beside her remarked.
He leaned down on one knee then before her and took her face into his hand. He squeezed so hard that she thought her jaw would break while those raging sea eyes stared her down. "What's yer name, lass?" A small, spider monkey screamed and then ran up his shoulder to mimick the red-bearded man's every gesture.
Remembering her pride, recalling how she had won the respect and admiration of her own crew, she blanked the emotion from her face and said, "Lillian."
"Lillian," the fat one who'd brought her out by her hair repeated in a childish tone. "Wittle Lillian."
"Lillian," the captain turned his head curiously.
"Lillian MacCreedy," she said.
Suddenly the man's hand grew slack, and he lowered it against his thigh. The rage in his eyes was replaced by sudden curiosity. "MacCreedy, you say?"
"Aye," she struggled against the bonds that held her arms.
"You wouldn't happen to be the daughter of Agnes MacCreedy?"
The sound of her mother's name from the strangers tongue had struck her like lightning, and in the shock of it, she could hardly stammer over her own reply. "How. . . how. .. how do you know my mother?"
A crooked smile drew at the corner of his mouth. "The sea's no place for a young lass," he moved backward, stood up above her, a curious expression dark across his face. "Ragetti, see this little lady to our ship, and do good to make sure she remains in my cabin unspoiled."
"Of course, Cap'n," the bizarre little man behind her agreed. She felt the strands of her hair stretch against his pull, and she cried out as he drug her away. She saw the faces of all the men she'd scarred once, and her heart galloped with rage when she saw her lover's body lying lifeless on the main deck. She'd cried out in horror then, not sure what they intended to do with her, what the strange Captain who had called her her mother's daughter had planned for her.
Ragetti tied her to a chair in the Captain's quarters and left her alone with that strange little monkey. It ran across the table taunting her like a menace until it grew bored and finally perched on the back of her chair just to annoy her. It seemed like hours passed, and the ship had definitely begun to move, when at long last the door to the Captain's Cabin creaked open.
He was a tall man who moved with poise, certainty and an odd touch of elegance as well. Upon seeing him, the monkey leapt off of her chair and raced over to the captain's affection. He circled around her, reached out and lifted the short wave of her red hair, and then dropped it against her shoulder. His eyes were calm again, almost kind, but like the sea she sensed that were some kind of trick.
"Lillian," he said her name. "The sea's no place for a young woman."
"And who are you to decide where I belong?"
"I am Hector Barbossa," he announced with a certain flare of importance. "I am your father."
"No," she gasped. "My father's no pirate, I assure you." Tears burned in her eyes. "He's an honest seaman. A merchant."
"Is that what she told you then? That I was a honest merchant?" He regarded her with a half-smile, and in his eyes there was a hint of admiration, perhaps mingled with longing for the family life he'd refused. "Dear child, the lies a mother tells her children, but then I hardly blame her. Last time I saw her, she cursed me straight to hell."
She looked away, struggled against her bonds. "Perhaps you should have listened to her then," she muttered.
"Perhaps," he hissed, and then a slow, gravelly laugh escaped his throat. "I don't blame you for holding your mother's bitterness against me."
"My mother spoke of you as though you were a saint," Lillian's teeth clenched tightly together. "And now I'm not sure what I am more disgusted by, her lies, or the truth."
"I suspect then that this was now how you planned our little family reunion," his sarcastic tone raked across her soul until she felt bitter inside.
"I came to sea to find you," she blinked several times to try and fan away the tears that stun her eyes again. "And instead I find a murdering, thieving pirate."
He turned away. "Well, I'm sorry to disappoint ye, my love." His voice had hardened then, and there was no emotion in his words as far as she could tell. "I've turned this ship back toward Ireland. You're going home to be with your mother, where you belong. I want you to marry a proper young fellow, live a proper life. . ."
And he had taken her back, just as he'd promised. She had no chance to tell him that her mother was dead, that there was nothing left for her in Ireland, but she suspected that little of what she said would have reached him anyway.
They hadn't said goodbye, and at the time she was glad of it. Glad to be rid of the heartache of her discovery. She'd stood on the docks that day wrapped in all she had left, her clothes and a small blanket he had parted with, and she watched her father sail away from her life once again. That ship had disappeared into the vast sea, and she'd never felt anything more painful in all her life. She had set out to sea to find her father, and instead she'd found a heartless pirate in his place.
Six weeks later, she set out to sea again, and thanks be to everything she had learned from Eric Heinlen, it wasn't long before she found herself captain of her own ship: The Poseidon's Queen. She found out the hard way in her first year out that there were very few honest merchants, and that in order to avoid being raided, one had to start doing the raiding. Slowly, Lil found herself sinking into the pirate's life, into everything her father had never wanted for her, though he'd been too stubborn to say so. She silently resolved to prove herself to him, but first she would have to catch up with him. She traced his course all over the seven seas, and even came close to catching up with him a time or two, but it seemed no ship in the world was fast enough to capture the Black Pearl.
"Cap'n," John Jenkins called from the crow's nest. "Cap'n, you're not gonna believe this, but I've got the Pearl in my sites."
"The Pearl?" Lillian swallowed against the momentary leap of hope that sprang into her chest. How could this be? Was it some kind of miracle.
"Aye, Cap'n." he called out the coordinates, and Lil put the small scope to her eye. At first she saw nothing but the endless, rolling sea, but then there was a crisp, flickering black flag as the Black Pearl bobbed momentarily into sight, then out again.
"We're closer than I thought," she marveled, and lifted her face to the clearing sky. "Poseidon may just have his due." She turned to the crew and started barking out orders. She wasn't sure how they would reach the Pearl, or what they might do when they did finally get there, but this new hope beat the odds of them surviving adrift. "Onward," She cried out. "Lower the oars, let's row, row you lazy dogs!"