As commanded by the O Faithful Fans! Rum to you all!
Disclaimer: PotC is Disney.
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Gibbs greeted Jack.
"Let's put some distance between us and this island and head out to open sea."
"Yes to the first, yes to the second, but only insofar as we keep to the shallows as much as possible," Pintel and Ragetti, who somehow had escaped a hanging, stood at Jack's side after giving his coat to him. Jack did a double take and Meg looked at them quite quizzically. They saluted.
"Now, that seems a bit contradictory, Captain." Gibbs replied.
"I have every faith in your re-conciliatory navigational skills, Master Gibbs. Now, where is that monkey? I want to shoot something." Something fell from the rigging just as Jack finished. It was Ragetti's eye. Will approached Jack just as he was putting a bullet in his pistol.
"Jack,"
"Ah….oh, it's you,"
"Jack,"
"Not now,"
"Jack!"
"Not now!"
"Elizabeth and Beth are in danger." Meg moved in front of Will.
"What happened? Tell me!" She started to get a little aggressive, hanging onto Will's shirt.
"Where's that monkey…" Jack murmured looking at the rigging. Meg glanced over at him.
"Er—" began Will.
"Have you considered keeping a more watchful eye on them," Jack said walking off, deciding he'd shoot the monkey later. "Maybe just lock them up somewhere?"
"They are locked up in a prison, bound to hang for helping you."
"I thought you had already forgotten about Miss Swann…"
Trying to avoid Meg's death glare, Will followed.
"Er, something came up…Elizabeth and I were due to be married—"
"What was your problem with Beth!" Meg said, following Will.
"There comes a time when one must take responsibility for one's mistakes." Jack said.
Will pulled a sword from another sailor's belt and held it to Jack's throat. "I need that compass of yours, Jack. I must trade it for their freedom- to save them, Jack."
"That has a familiar ring to it," Jack said sardonically.
Meg grasped for her own sword and held it to Will's throat.
"What happened between you and Beth." Meg said forcefully. Will looked a little scared.
"Let the man finish, Meg," said Jack, interrupting Meg's glare-fest. Will said to Jack, "You will hand it over. Now! In exchange, you will be granted full pardon and commissioned as a privateer in the service of England."
"I wonder what will my crew think when they see you've skewered their beloved and duly chosen captain?"
"I think they will see it as an example…ah," Will said, just before Meg held her sword a little closer, so he could feel the cold blade. Jack pondered this.
"All right, you get the Compass, you rescue your bonnie lasses," Jack rolled his eyes. "…Where's my profit?"
"You and Meg get full pardon. Freedom."
Jack moved Will's sword away from his neck and left the other two to their glare-fest.
"Mr. Gibbs?"
"Captain?" replied Gibbs who was standing at the helm.
"We have a need to travel upriver…"
"By need, do you mean a trifling need, fleeting, as in, say, a passing fancy?"
"No, a resolute and unyielding need," Jack
explained looking at Will and Meg. Will once again tried to avoid Meg and followed Jack again.
"What we need to do is make sail for Port Royal with all haste." Meg followed Will.
"William... I shall trade you the compass, if you will help me..." Jack took the drawing of the key from his coat pocket and spread it out on the woodwork. "to find this." Will looked at it for a moment.
"You want me to find this." He pointed to the cloth.
"No. You want you to find this. Because the finding of this, finds you incapacitorially finding and/or locating in your discovering the detecting of a way to save your dolly belle ol' what's her face. Savvy?" Meg smirked. She never particularly liked Elizabeth, and Jack making a bit of fun of her made everything all the better. She still was not finished with Will, however. Will took the cloth from Jack.
"There's two of them," Will commented.
"Whatever," Jack waved it off.
"…This is going to save Elizabeth and Beth." Jack's expression went serious.
"How much do you know about Davey Jones?" There was a tense moment. Meg sensed that Jack was plotting something.
"Not much," Will replied.
"Yeah, it's going to save Elizabeth and Beth," Will went away to study the cloth. Meg followed, determined to get an answer from him.
"Why aren't you and Beth together anymore?" she asked. Will sighed and looked up at her.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because she's my best friend,"
"Things were just not working,"
"Why?" Will glared at Meg.
"Honor…something you probably know nothing of," Meg took a small step back, feeling insulted.
"You? A blacksmith…needing honor? Elizabeth is the Governor's daughter…is that what you're looking for, Will? Power? So you can be governor? Beth is the Commodore's cousin…and perfect for you. You missed the opportune moment again, Turner, and it was right in front of your nose." She was now disgusted with Will. Will did not bother correcting Meg when she said 'Commodore's cousin'. Meg stalked off, leaving Will with his guilty thoughts. She went into Jack's cabin, the only place that she could go to be alone…when Jack wasn't in there, of course. Jack seemed to have noticed Meg's mood and cautiously went in after her. He found her gazing out one of the large windows at the sea. Jack came up behind her and hugged her from behind.
"What's got you worked up, love?"
"…why would Will throw Beth away like that?"
"Hmm?" Meg placed her hands on Jack's arms.
"That's not like him…and what he sees in Elizabeth, I'll never know."
"You miss Beth, eh?" Jack asked. Meg nodded. "I have a feeling that we'll run across her sooner or later…particularly since Mr. Turner has shown up." Meg nodded again and sighed, leaning on Jack a little. "No worries, love," he kissed the top of her head and started to walk away.
"Jack?"
"Yes?"
"Why are we going upriver?" She turned around.
"Er…to see an old friend,"
"…right." Meg turned back around and looked out the window again.
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The Edinburgh Trader slipped through the ocean one fine morning. Elizabeth and Beth had stowed away on it. Beth chose to be the lookout and Elizabeth chose a random job on deck. A sailor passed by a pile of rope on the deck and noticed two very fine dresses. They caught the attention of the other sailors and the bursar and the quartermaster. The captain, Captain Bellamy, noticed the commotion.
"What's all this?" he asked.
"This ship is haunted," said the bursar.
"Is it now?" the Bellamy replied and addressed the quartermaster. "You?"
"There are a female presence amongst us here, sir. All the men, they can feel it," the crew agreed to this. Another sailor spoke up, "Belongs to two ladies, best of friends, one widowed before her marriage, I figure it. Searching for her husband lost the sea, and the other, engaged to a marooned sailor."
"Virgins, too, likely as not," another said. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow from painting the railing. Beth smirked as she watched from above. "And that bodes ill by all accounts."
"I say that we throw the dress overboard and we hope the spirit follows it," suggested the bursar.
"No!" exclaimed the quartermaster. "That will just anger this spirit, sir. What we need to do is to find out what the spirit needs and then just get it back to her." Everyone started arguing over the dresses again.
"Enough! Enough!" interrupted Captain Bellamy. "You're a pair of superstitious goats and it's got the best of ye." He took one of the dresses from the sailors. "Now this appears to be as no more that we have a couple of stowaways on board. Young women, by the look of it. I want you to search the ship and find them. Oh, and, eh, they're probably naked." The sailor's eyes widened and they began searching. Elizabeth joined in the hunt and Beth looked around the deck with a spyglass.
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Poor Will... R&R!
