Here we go, chapter four. I mean three. Bloody prologue messing with me head. Anyway, thank you for reading, and those of you who have, thank you for reviewing. For anyone who hasn't – please do. I'm a desperate pirate.

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He climbed up the rope to board the ship, and lay gasping on the deck for a few moments like a dying fish. The pirates who stood around him jeered and whistled. He couldn't fully comprehend that he was safe now, at least from drowning or going mad from the heat and the thirst. Exactly what the pirates intended to do with him remained to be seen. Dizzily, he pulled himself to his feet. His rescuers continued to mock him, but also looked him up and down, appraisingly. One of them, the one who had been referred to as Skinny, suddenly darted forwards and seized his flask.

"Hey!" Gibbs protested, trying to grab it back.

The pirate, who was well named, giggled and shook the flask backwards and forwards just out of his reach. "Uh, uh. That's the price of your rescue mate."

"Well, for a start." another pirate snorted.

"Yeah," the skinny one agreed. He tipped the flask up and took a drink, then sighed loudly and wiped his mouth. "A very good start."

"Give me that," the second pirate made a grab for the flask. Skinny moved it out of the way.

"No! S'mine."

It seemed about to become a fight, when all the pirates fell silent, staring at something over Gibbs' shoulder. He turned round slowly. The man he assumed was the pirate captain stood there. He looked, at first sight, like an off duty naval officer. The clothes he wore were fancy and there was something in the way he held himself. But on closer inspection, the fine clothes were shabby and in need of mending, and his hair was arranged in an approximation of the wigs that true gentlemen wore.

He strode forwards and stopped just in front of Gibbs.

"Good day to you," he said and bowed very slightly. Gibbs made no reply. The pirate continued anyway. "I am Captain of this fine vessel, The SeaSkull. My name is Captain Velvet." he paused, until Gibbs had muttered his name. "We have, you will admit, rescued you from certain death. In exchange you will serve us."

"I won't serve on a bloody pirate ship." he blurted out. The waiting audience shifted between uneasiness and amusement.

Velvet's eyes narrowed. "You are very perceptive." he purred. "But I was not offering you a choice. You will serve as a ship's slave and perhaps, after a while I will choose to allow you to become a member of my crew."

"I will not!" he answered, with more defiance at his disposal than sense. He may have fallen from what was right in most ways; he would not complete his shame by turning pirate. "And don't think for a minute that I will ever serve a false dog such as yourself!"

The Captain laughed a little, seeming to find his refusal and insults amusing. "Perhaps some time spent incarcerated will teach him the merits of compliance." The pirate crew, to a man, looked blank. Their captain rolled his eyes. "Take him to the brig." he explained.

He was dragged below. He didn't bother struggling. Even if he managed to get free from the men holding his arms he would remain trapped on board their ship. He was pushed into the cell. Somewhat to his surprise, it was already occupied. The other prisoner was a fairly young man, not amazingly tall and slender with it. His black hair was full of beads and was held back with a red bandana. He looked up as Gibbs and his escorts appeared, and his dark eyes - lined with kohl, surprisingly - held an expression of utter laziness.

"Good day to you." he said. "Is it that you've come to your senses and decided to promote me from captive to captain?"

The pirates engaged in some synchronised scowling. "No. We've brought another prisoner. Cap'n Velvets orders." Skinny spoke up.

His friend glared at him. "Don't go encouraging him. He'll be talking for the rest of the day!"

The prisoner ignored this. "Oh, so you've decided that I need the joys of companionship to lessen the boredom of confinement?" The man had an odd way of moving not just his hands and arms, but his whole body, while he talked.

There was much confusion from the pirates, and for that matter from Gibbs. Why did this man not realise the perils of his situation? He didn't have time to think before the cell door was thrown shut behind him. Most of the pirates left, but Skinny lingered behind for a moment. "Good luck with 'im." He whispered, nodding towards the other prisoner. He tapped his finger on the side of his head meaningfully, and pulled a face. "Mad. Completely." Then he left.

The other prisoner, had watched the exchange with a smirk on his face, now he grinned outright revealing several gold teeth. Gibbs settled down in the corner of the cell as far away from the probable lunatic as possible, and tried not to look at him, but his eyes were drawn somehow over there. He blinked in astonishment. He had a bottle of rum! Where in the name of god had he found that. The other man, seeing his regard grinned widely, once again and stood up stretching, the bottle still clutched tightly in his hand. He made his way across the cell, swaying noticeably as he walked, and sat himself down besides Gibbs. In fact, he sat closer than was normally held acceptable, and Gibbs tried to move further away, but was prevented by the walls of the cell. The strange man offered the bottle.

"Drink?" he asked. "Not too much mind, it was hard work stealing that."

Frowning, he took the bottle and gulped a measure down. He gave it back to the strange man, who somehow managed to fit it into the pocket of the coat he had thrown over his shoulders. "There you go!" No-one in a prison should have a voice that bright. "That's better now isn't it?"

He was forced to agree. "Thank you." he added, as a reluctant afterthought.

"That's alright mate." That annoying grin again. His companion seemed a simpleton. "What's your name?" The question came out of nowhere.

He was reluctant to answer it. It seemed best not to encourage the man. "Why should I tell you?"

"Why should you not?"

He didn't have an answer for that, so he didn't bother saying anything. There was silence for a while, then his odd companion rolled up his right shirt sleeve, to scratch at a rather dirty bandage. It was stained with old blood and rapidly coming undone. That wasn't what caught Gibbs' attention though; there was a 'P' branded into his arm.

He sprang to his feet. "You're another pirate. Like them."

The man simply smiled. "Pirate, yes. Like them, no. I'm bloody unique, mate."

That seemed inarguable. With little else to do, he sat back down again, once again creating some distance between himself and his cell-mate. It made no odds however, the man simply scooted over and sat next to him, as close as ever, seemingly incapable of taking the hint that he wasn't welcome.

"I take it that you are not a pirate, since you seem to find the fact that I am a pirate intolerable so I would therefore ask what line it is that you do follow that has attracted the attention of this bunch of miscreants?"

Once he had translated that sentence, he answered; "No real line. I do some fishing. And I used to be in the navy." How he wished he could keep that wistful tone out of his voice. "I got washed out to sea in the storm and picked up by this ship."

The pirate nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. He moved further away and occupied himself with attempting to retie the bandage round his arm. It seemed beyond him, however and Gibbs found himself unwilling to watch the man struggle any longer, pirate or no. He crossed over and knelt down in front of the man.

"Here. Let me." He was startled that the dark eyes that suddenly regarded him intensely were entirely serious.

After a long moment the pirate nodded and held out his arm. He removed the bandage. The wound revealed was deep but half healed, although it looked like it would open again fairly easily. Oddly it had the look of neither a sword cut nor a bullet graze.

Apparently catching his astonishment, the pirate said. "Barrel of gunpowder exploded. I got hit by a splinter." There was a certain gleam in his eye that suggested that this had been, despite the injury, a fun incident.

He nodded, without comment and retied the bandage, being as gentle as he could.

"Thank you." The pirate said gravely when he was finished. For a while they sat together in silence. As ever in quiet moments, Gibbs' thoughts turned to Ann. He wondered if he might soon be reunited with her. He wondered whether he felt glad of that or sorry. He had to make her proud of him though. Now more than ever. He had to keep on fighting to the last. Perhaps he might escape? But there didn't seem any easy way of doing that. And his companion would be of no help. He glanced at the man by his side, and was astonished and infuriated to see that he was making shadow pictures on the wall.

"What's the matter with you?" he demanded angrily. "Don't you realise that you're locked up? Don't you realise that they're going to make you a slave?"

"No they're not. They're going to kill me. They're just waitin' till they get to Tortuga." He didn't seem at all concerned about this. "But we won't get there till tomorrow, and in the meantime I'm bored."

Gibbs blinked. "They're going to kill you?"

This grin was wildly malevolent "So they think. No-one's managed yet."

He felt a surge of sympathy for this poor fool who was in an entirely hopeless position and didn't even realise it. If boredom was what he was complaining about though, then that at least he could be helped with.

"How 'bout a story. I know loads." he offered.

"Alright then mate." The insane pirate settled back against the wall.

He searched his memory for an appropriate story and settled on one that the young Miss Swan had told him.

"This story is about how Jack Sparrow outwitted an admiral and stole his flagship." For a moment, an expression of vivid amusement crossed the face of the listener, but it vanished so fast that he decided it was probably nothing but a figment of his imagination.

"Alright. For whatever reason, this Jack Sparrow – who as you probably know is a pirate – was in need of a ship. Being a somewhat optimistic rogue, he set his eye on the flagship, the pride of the royal navy you might say. Of course, it was heavily guarded so he decided to be stealthy about it. Late one night he broke into the Admiral's house – well, it were more of a mansion, really."

"How?"

"What?"

"How was it, that he broke into the mansion?"

"Oh." He scratched his head, he'd never been told that. "He climbed up some ivy." He improvised. "He climbed the ivy and ever so quietly, entered a window. Now, it turned out to be the window of the admiral's daughter." He was warming to the tale, Miss Swan had never told this part, but there was no harm in embellishments after all. "She was a little surprised to see him, but he was a charming sort of rogue and they spent some time exchanging, ah, pleasantries."

He was a little unnerved by the pirate's smirk but continued anyway. "That concluded, he stole into the Admiral's dressing room – having been given precise directions by the daughter you understand, and stole his uniform including" here he held up a hand for dramatic effect "Including his hat. Then, dressed in his ill-gotten booty, he simply made his way down to the flagship, and dismissed all the guards, who were too busy saluting to take a good look at the 'admiral' and sailed off into the horizon."

The listening pirate put his hands together. "That is a wonderful tale. And I've never heard that version before. My thanks to you."

Gibbs couldn't suppress a smile at the obvious delight that the man had taken from his story. The pirate responded with a smile of his own. "Best to get some sleep, mate. Going to have a busy day tomorrow escaping."

Gibbs couldn't believe his ears. "Escaping? How? You have a plan?"

"No. But I will. Just wait for the opportune moment, mate. That's the key." He leant back and closed his eyes.

Gibbs watched him. This really was a mad man he was sharing a cell with and a pirate to boot. But for all that, somehow, he had a certain basic likableness, an annoying charm. He would be sorry to see him die, in truth. But there was nothing that could be done about that. With nothing else to do, he too lay back and attempted to sleep.

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Wow, I seem to have gone from incredibly short chapters to incredibly long ones. At least it felt long.

Anyone not figuring out that the man in the cell is Jack needs to go watch the film again. Actually, to hell with it, everyone needs to go watch the film again. Everyone! In the whole wide world!

Um, please review?