"JACK!" Hope yelled to him when she burst through his cabin door. "Open her door right now!"
"What? Huh? I'm awake!" Jack yelled back groggily, obviously falling asleep where he sat at the table. There was a flask of rum sitting in front of him and it was half empty, as Hope could clearly see. Upon realizing he was maybe a little bit drunk, she grew a bit more understanding in the space of a few seconds. Walking around behind him to try and help him up, she noticed that there were at least ten empty flasks on the floor behind him. She picked one up and sniffed, and then all of a sudden she wasn't so understanding anymore.
"You're drunk? How could you be so stupid! I thought you had more self-control than that." She smacked the back of his head with the rum bottle and he jumped up, shouting "THE SKY IS FALLING! RUN!"
Hope sighed and collapsed in one of the chairs, rolling her eyes as Jack proceeded to start running and then trip over a chair, falling unconscious onto the floor.
***~***
Jack awoke on the floor and was not sure how he got there. Looking up, he saw that Hope was sitting nearby on a chair, looking down at him with obvious distaste.
"Finally, you've come into your senses again. Now help me get the door to the cell open so I can kill Sophie."
"What?" Jack asked, trying to get his eyes focused and get rid of the headache which was disorienting him.
"You got drunk. Meanwhile, I went down to Sophie's cell and she made me mad so I unlocked the door, but I couldn't get it open cuz she had her foot in the way. I need you to open the door for me."
"Wait, what?" Jack asked, sitting up. "Why didn't you just shoot her? And… you left the cell unlocked?"
Hope contemplated what he said for a moment, her mouth falling open and her eyes growing wider.
"I couldn't have shot her…"
"No, of course you couldn't have." Jack said sarcastically. He thought about this for a moment. "Why couldn't you have?"
"Because… because that would be cruel! She doesn't have a chance to… defend herself!"
Jack instantly agreed with this statement, seeing as how he didn't want Hope to hit him with an empty rum bottle again. His head hurt enough already.
Then he thought about what he has just agreed to. "But… you said you wanted to kill her anyway, so why didn't you just shoot her?"
Hope stared at him for another moment, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.
"Never mind." Jack mumbled. "You'd just like to think you're so mysterious all the time… everybody makes mistakes so quit pretending like you had a reason to not shoot her. Now, listen to me… we're going to very calmly, go down into the brig and assess the situation. Agreed?"
Hope shot him a strange look. "Jack… Sophie tends to be… unorthodox."
"I think I understand that." Jack said with an exasperated tone. "I'm unorthodox, you're unorthodox, we're all unorthodox, and she can just join the club."
"No, I mean… I think there's something… wrong in her head."
Jack stared. "The woman is obsessed with forks. How harmful can she be?"
***~***
Very harmful, Jack realized later on as he and Hope were peering through the bars at the cheekily grinning Sophie.
The woman was making him want to kill himself, just to get her annoying grin out of his head. "Why on earth, Sophie…" Hope began to say, but Sophie cut her off.
"You know, I decided I like this cell. I think I want to stay here for a long, long time." Sophie said, absentmindedly tossing the keys back and forth in her hands. Hope placed a hand on her forehead and took a deep breath.
"I am never going to get anything done while you are on this ship. I'm supposed to be concentrating on my plan for getting my ship back, but nooooo…"
Jack looked back and forth from the two women. "Hope, as long as she's in the brig, she can't really do anything to mess up your plan."
"What plan?" Sophie said, leaning forward eagerly. "I want to help!"
Hope looked meaningfully at Jack.
"Jack, can I talk to you?"
"Sure." Jack said, shrugging. He didn't move.
"Over there." Hope pointed to the corner.
"Oh."
***
Jack and Hope went into the corner and she sighed, rubbing her forehead again. "We need to get rid of her. Just her… being here, on the ship makes it so I can't think straight."
"Well, what do you want to do? You don't want to kill her…"
"But she has the keys! She could get out at any time."
"Could murder us in our sleep…" Jack said, not really thinking.
Hope's eyes grew wide. "You think so?"
"No, no. I don't think so." Jack said quickly.
The conversation was interrupted by a strange noise coming from Sophie's cell. She had pulled one of the useless keys off the ring, and was now chewing in the end.
"What are you doing?" Hope asked, horrified. "You don't know where that's been."
"I know where it is now." Sophie said, continuing to chew on the end of the key.
"Why are you…?" Jack was confused.
"I wanted something to chew on." Sophie said simply.
"I think that's disgusting." Jack said, staring at her.
"I care what you think." Sophie said sarcastically.
For a moment, the three of them were all just staring at each other.
Jack threw his hat down on the floor and stomped on it in frustration, watching it crumple and then start to float to the other side of the boat in the murky water. Jack watched it for a moment and then seemed to realize he had just stomped on his hat, and went to retrieve it. Hope grabbed him by the hair and leaned close to his ear to whisper; "We have to get out of here NOW otherwise she'll start to think that we have a weakness… that we can't stand her! Now, Jack. We're leaving."
Jack eyed his hat and whimpered as Hope dragged him up the stairs.
Sophie watched as the hat floated down to her end of the brig again. Picking it up, she pulled it through the bars and set the damp hat on her head, grinning.
"No more falling money can hurt me now!"