Before too long, my 26th birthday crept up on me. I awoke to exceedingly loud whispers right outside my door. Someone I'm pretty sure was Simon hissed, "Shut up, guys!"

"Why? She needs to get up anyway," the Count replied at his normal volume.

"SHHH!" a bunch of people responded.

I rolled my eyes and called, "If you're trying to surprise me...you've failed." Everything outside the door fell silent. "Well, come in!" Slowly, the door creaked open, revealing everyone's sheepish expressions. Only Gavin and Quentin were absent.

"Happy birthday!" Simon said, throwing his hands up in the air.

Everyone else kind of looked at him, then back to me. I kept a stony face as I said, "So, you woke me up just to tell me happy birthday?" They all stared at me, eyes wide. "That's so sweet!" I exclaimed, allowing a smile to break onto my face.

They all sighed in relief, then cried, "Happy birthday, Chelsea!"

I jumped up and started hugging them. "If you're all here, who's broadcasting?" I asked as I strangled Felicity in my arms.

"I am," Simon replied. "I need to get back. Come here!" I released Felicity and jumped into his arms. "Happy birthday, Chels."

"Thanks, Simon."

After he left, Carl stepped forward. "No one else really got you anything, so I kind of feel weird, but I made these for you." He handed me an envelope.

I took it from him gently and opened it. Inside were numerous photographs of me with everyone on the ship. They weren't all in every one, but I had at least one with each of them. "My god, Carl. These are wonderful!" I said, awed. "I didn't know you knew how to work that camera you fixed."

He smiled. "I figured it out. I've just been snapping, and I caught quite a few good ones of you. I thought you'd like to have them."

"Thanks, man." I hugged him again. "This is the best birthday present ever. It actually means something." I looked at the pictures for a little while longer, then said, "You all can leave now. I need to get dressed." There were some murmured apologies and chuckles as they cleared out. I sat on my bed, flipping through the pictures. They ranged from me and Simon lip syncing into the radio microphones to me and Felicity covered in flour when I tried to help her cook. The most photogenic, however, was one of me and Gavin topside. We were leaning on the rails, looking out over the water with our backs to the camera, but our heads were turned towards each other. I honestly didn't know why I liked it so much. It was just pretty.

As I made my way to the kitchen, I passed Gavin in the hall. I wasn't going to say anything to him, but I had to when he said something first. "Hey, happy birthday, pigeon."

I smiled. "Thank you, Gavin."

"I got you something." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. I took it, and as I was unfolding it, he said, "It's a star chart. It'll help you figure out what you're looking at if you ever go out there again."

I looked up at him, beaming. "Thanks. This really means a lot."

He shrugged. "Don't mention it. Have a good day, yeah?"

"I'll try," I told him as I turned to leave.

Later that day, after my broadcast, Simon and I went up to the deck to hang out. We sat with our legs dangling off the side of the ship. Over the radio, Gavin was announcing the results of a recent poll in the country. Apparently, "...government plans to undermine us have failed spectacularly! In fact, the recent poll says that in an election, 93% of the British people would vote for the pirates rather than the government! This is why!"

He started a song, and Simon and I shared a grin. "Well, that's good news," I said.

"Yeah. Lovely news." He looked out over the water and sighed.

"You're thinking about Elenore again, aren't you?" I asked softly.

He gave me one of those smiles where it's only your lips and you don't really mean it. "I am. How did you know?"

"I can read you like a book, usually. A woodpecker book."

He snorted. "Is that so? Well, I shall have to be careful not to be so transparent and readable."

I smiled and waited a beat before continuing, "Do you want to talk about it?"

He didn't answer for a good while, but I just waited, knowing he would. Finally, he said, "I just keep feeling like something was wrong with me. Like that's why she wanted Gavin over me."

"Good lord, Simon, there is nothing wrong with you! There wasn't anything wrong then either! She was just a dumb bitch who somehow made herself believe that it would be ok for her to marry you but fuck around with him. The fault was hers. I honestly don't understand how she ever came to that conclusion, but she did. She just used you. There wasn't anything wrong with you."

"I just wasn't as sexy as Gavin."

"I fail to agree. You're remarkably good looking, Simon. I love your hair," I said, reaching over to play with a couple locks of it.

He smiled and let me. "You don't count. You're my best friend."

"I do so count! I'm a woman on top of being your best friend. Just, trust me on this, ok?"

"Fine," he assented.

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"Ok." He grinned at me, and I returned it. He really was very cute, and I was quite aware that I should've been trying to snare him, not Gavin, if I wanted a relationship with someone.

The next evening, I completely ignored this fact as I sat next to Gavin on the couch, passing up the chance the play checkers with Simon. Angus happily took my place there. We were just lounging about, talking to each other about all sorts of nothings, when Quentin entered. "Um, I have some rather...strange news," he said. All of our head swiveled towards him. "Our listening figures..."

"Here we go!" Count cut in happily.

Quentin gave him a look, then finished, "Have gone down."

There was a momentary pause, then we basically all said, "What?"

"Not mine," the Count stated.

"All of you," Quentin told him. "Except, of course, Gavin..." Beside me, Gavin gave the best haughty bow he could from a sitting position. "...and Simon's Super Sunday Smash show." I looked over and gave Simon a fist in the air for success. "But," Quentin continued, obviously intent upon making the day as terrible as possible, "that's only because Radio Sunshine doesn't have a chart show." It was almost absolutely silent in the room. You could've heard a cricket chirp.

"Radio what the fuck?" Count finally said, pretty much summing up everyone elses view as well.

Gavin leaned over to me and murmured, "You know he's depressed when the f word has to be in every single sentence." I bit my lip hard to keep from laughing.

The Count turned on his stool to look over at us. "Right here," he said.

"Oh, fuck, sorry," Gavin replied, rolling his eyes.

Completely ignoring this exchange, Quentin went on. "Ten days ago, a new station opened up in the North Sea. It is called Radio Sunshine." He essentially spat the name. "And it broadcasts for 18 hours a day." He let that sink in, then added, "Oh, by the way, Radio Sunshine's motto is: Who needs the Beatles when you've got Herman's Hermits?"

Both the Count and I got these extremely terrible looks on our faces. "NO!" we roared simultaneously. Quentin just gave us a bit of a grin and left. The Count and I, now thoroughly pissed off, looked at each other. He then looked at everyone else and silently motioned to follow him. Without a word, we did so.

We congregated up on the ship's bridge. The Count stood in front of us as we assembled, ready to hear his speech. "We used to have a motto in my college frat house. Don't get mad, get even."

Simon interrupted, "Our motto was semper fidelius inostra contilio." Or something along those lines.

"And what does that mean?"

"I don't know. I wish I did. Wish I did."

"Right, our motto was never wear purple with beige," Angus said.

"Ok, moving on!" Count cried exasperatedly. "Now, I believe in our old motto, and I believe that most of us have gone and forgotten exactly who we are! What are we?"

"We're pirates!" Simon answered, happy to have said the right thing.

"Exactly! We're pirates! And what do pirates do?"

"Play records!" Kevin replied with the same kind of gusto that Simon had employed. I looked at my feet and grinned.

"No. I mean actual pirates."

"Play actual records?"

"No! Fuck me!"

"I got this," Dave said. "I think actual pirates sail the sea in search of loot and treasure."

"YEAH!" Count cheered. "And to put it another way, they kick the fucking shit out of everyone on the fucking ocean who gets in their fucking way."

"Yeah!" we agreed heartily.

"And what's Radio Sunshine doing?"

"Playing records!" Kevin cried.

"FUCK!"

"No!" Simon said, waving the random carrot he had brought along. "They're getting in our...flipping way."

The Count nodded. "And what are we going to do?"

"We are going to kick the flip out of them!" he roared.

We all burst into thunderous agreement. "Lock and load, let's go!" Count announced.

We all started to clear out, and Dave said, "I think we should eat something first."

"I'm glad I had a carrot," Simon replied, taking a bite.

"I'm not just saying that 'cuz I'm fat. Even fat people need to eat."

I went up to him and pat him on the stomach. "You are absolutely right, David. Fat people do need to eat. They need to eat less."

"Ooh. That was quite good," Carl said with a wince. "She just got you, Dave." I grinned and threw my arm around Simon's waist as we departed.

We all went below and started dressing for the sabotage mission. I put on all the black clothing I had, then colored my pale face with a black marker Kevin offered me. As I put on my boots, Simon, who had half of his face inked up, asked me, "Are you sure this pen comes off?"

I stared at him, kind of touched my cheek with my fingertips, then looked down to find them very clean. "I don't know," I replied.

The Count came in inquiring, "Do we have our weapons?" We all held up the glue, knives, and other destructive equipment we'd managed to procure. "Good. Let's rock."

We all poured into the hall, headed for the deck. We rounded a corner only to have Dave inform us Quentin was coming. As we hadn't informed him of this little mission, we really didn't want to run into him. I found myself being rather roughly shoved into a room that everyone was now scrambling into. I ended up basically sitting on a sink with my legs around Mark to keep from falling. We waited until footsteps passed by the door before slowly filtering out again. I was the last one out, so, as I shut the door, I said sorry to Felicity who had actually been using this bathroom at the time we barged in. "Oh, that's alright," she said. "I enjoyed the company."

We successfully reached the deck with no more problems, and we all climbed into one of the longboats. Some misguided hierarchy went into effect and everyone but the Count and Gavin ended up having to row. Needless to say, the going was slow, but before too long...at least, before my arms fell off...the opposing ship was in sight. "There she is," Count said.

Gavin happily hissed, "This is going to be SO much fun."

We crept up the side of the ship, and Gavin quickly disposed of a guard by soundly whacking him on the head with an oar. "You'd better hope he's not dead," I told him. He just grinned and shrugged.

We then made our way down to the studio. It was remarkable how similar the layout of this ship was to our own. Granted, this one was smaller, and we all made sure to make fun of that fact in some form or fashion throughout the duration of this event. I got assigned record destruction, so I simply sat in a chair, slicing nice, clean slits on the surfaces of Radio Sunshine's record collection. At one point, Gavin sauntered up to a microphone, spit on it, then picked his nose and wiped whatever he'd managed to harvest on the mike. I paused in my slicing to stare at him, disgusted. "What?" he asked innocently.

"Look, I know we don't like these people, but that's gross. Makes me wonder what you do to my mike when I'm not looking." This terribly gleeful grin spread across his face, and I realized what I'd done. "Oh...god, don't. Gavin, really!" He just waved me off and left. I spun around, looking for Harold. When I found him, I hissed his name. He came over. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, Chels."

"Never let Gavin into my studio, ok? I don't care what he says, just don't let him in."

He stared at me, obviously confused, but he nodded. "Ok. Sure."

"Thank you. I love you," I said, patting his cheek. This seemed to make him forget he was confused, and he happily skipped away.

As dawn approached, we completed our tasks and met near the door to the deck. "Is everyone here?" Count whispered.

I glanced around, counting heads. There was one head, with pretty, long, dark hair not present. "We're missing Mark!" I said.

"Dawn's coming! We have to get back."

"Obviously, but we can't leave him either!" I snapped, not enjoying the fact that I had had to relinquish my sleep for the night to do this. Before the Count and I got into a rather petty fight, Mark came jogging up some stairs. "What were you doing?" I asked him, annoyed.

"The weather girl," he replied. The oohs and aahs echoed as we ran out.

Back on board our own vessel, we all sat around a table in the kitchen, eating breakfast. My eyes felt like I had an anchor hooked to each lid, not to mention the fact that my face violently stung from the scrubbing I had given it. I still had only managed to reduce the effects of the pen to grey. Gavin, who was sitting on my left, kept glancing over at me every few seconds, grinning, then looking away. Finally, during one of these glances, I wildly swung my left hand at him, and I caught him in the chin. "What was that for?" he demanded.

I stared at the wall opposite me and tensely responded, "Just...stop." He kept glaring at me from behind those damn sunglasses, but he quickly broke, grinned again, and looked away. I sighed, even allowing a very small smile to touch my lips. I poked around in my cereal bowl for a little while longer, not really interested in the soggy flakes. I nearly flipped the bowl right onto the floor when Quentin came bursting in unannounced. Angus tried to hide his similarly discolored face behind a cereal box, and Carl tried to submerge his in his actual cereal. I promptly turned my head and stuck my face into Gavin's arm, though I'm not sure why I thought that would work as his arms are much more thin than my face.

"Morning, guys," Quentin said. He stopped short, however, getting a glance of our guilty expressions...and the penned faces. "Oh." I winced, waiting for his strong disapproval, but he went on, "You should have a listen to Radio Sunshine. They've gone rather...how can one put it?...off the ball."

"Turn it on," the Count said, smiling ear to ear.

Quentin sat on my right, placing a radio down in front of me. He switched it on, and I removed my face from Gavin's upper arm to listen. A very bright voice came out of the box. "My apologies, folks. We seem to be having some technical tensions this merry morrow, but let's move on, let's groove on. This is the new sensational song from The Move. This is Night of Fear."

"No, it's not!" Simon cried excitedly. Rock Around the Christmas Tree began playing. We all applauded the screw up, and I started dancing a bit and singing along.

Another voice came on, but still bright. "Ok, alright, everybody. Everything is ok because Big Dave is here to the rock n' roll rescue. Let's listen to the palatable platter known as Gary Puckett while Bernard tries to figure out where he left his brain this morning." The other guy interjected with a laugh. "And naughty Gary is quite interested in a very young girl." This record stuck on the first note. Everyone gave me and Angus the credit for that one since we had done the slicing and carving. The guy quickly came back on, laughing. "Ha, well, Gary seems to be stuck in that relationship. You know, I know of someone who's not stuck in anything because they have got one of the best products in the entire world."

We all turned to our Dave who had recorded something beforehand and left it as the only not-glued-to-a-surface advertisement. "Tense? Need to relax? No better way to do that than Night's cigarettes. They'll give you cancer, and then you can relax for the rest of your life. Oh...because you'll be dead."

"Okiedokie!" the Bernard fellow came back in. "I think it's time we went to the weather! What's in store for us today, Katie?"

Gavin and I exchanged excited grins as a dreamy sort of voice said, "Oh...the weather is just...um...you know...great. And last night...was...heaven." There was a shocked silence emanating from the radio that we drowned out with our ohs!

I saluted Mark down at the end of the table, regretting being short with him earlier. Quentin, thoroughly amused, turned off the radio. "So," he said, "Radio Rock rules the waves once more. Life will be ecstasy."

I grinned and picked it up. "You and me, endlessly, grooving."

Gavin turned and looked at me. "Yeah," he said, all gravelly like and happy. I just smiled and nodded.

About ten minutes later, I got up to leave, saying, "I'm going to take a nap. Someone come get me when it's my turn to DJ."

"I will," Carl said.

"Thank you." As I got to the door, I spun on my heel to face the group again. "And, Gavin?" He looked over at me. "Don't you dare touch my microphone."