Disclaimer - All TMNT and POTC characters owned by others. I'm just borrowing them for a moment.

This was a much longer chapter (over four-thousand words), but I have decided to break it up. So, consider this an interim before segueing into the next 'adventure' for Jack and company.

And, I evidently DIDN'T upload this chapter and instead uploaded The Shot Heard 'Round the Cave. So, this is all new, folks, from what I originally put up. Sorry for the inconvenience. My bad. 'Shot' will appear almost immediately, so my apologies for those who have already read and were kind enough to review. Hopefully, I won't lose either on my stats, but I have to upload this before 'Shot'. Sorry.

Chapter 8 - Crazy Man and His Rum.

Several miles across the sea and taking great pains to steer a safe course through the treacherous waters, Captain Jack Sparrow worked the ship's wheel. In his other hand, he held his compass, opened and revealing its hexed dial. With the fog-shrouded ocean and the sun more or less obscured by the clouds, the magnetic box was his only way to discern which direction to sail.

"Is it holdin' steady, Cap'n?"

"Yes, steady now, Mr. Gibbs. You are keeping an eye on the sunkens, right?" Sparrow glanced at his first mate, as Gibbs stepped off the stairs and onto the helm.

"As best the derelicts will allow, Cap'n."

"Just watch for masts, keep your deadlights at th'ready."

"Tis the ones I can't see that worry me most, though, Cap'n."

"You do have a lookout in the nest, correct?"

"Aye, of course, Cap'n. I has young Fisher up there, a good eye has he."

"Only one?" Jack cocked one brow in concern, a worried tone in his voice.

Gibbs snorted, "No, Cap'n, the boy has a set, of course, wouldn't do to have a look-out with jus' one eye."

"Double assurance, then." Jack smiled and relaxed again, as he studied his compass once more, "It's finally behav'n itself. Must be on the right path. How long now?"

Gibbs replied, "An hour, if that, sooner if we could go full sail."

"No, as much as I'd like to, Mr. Gibbs, not with these sunkens to worry 'bout. We stay the course, despite Miss Swann's hurry t'get the gold t'where it belongs."

"She keeps naggin' at ya?"

Jack rolled his eyes, "Pity, a lass as beautiful as she, talkin' her way to ugly. I've never met a more determined wench." He then smirked, "Lucky for Will Turner, eh?"

Gibbs chuckled and remarked, "What is it they say, Cap'n? Behind ev'ry good man…"

"Is a case of good rum!" Jack grinned, causing both he and his first mate to laugh. Then, the pirate stole a glance at the man, "Ya haves the rum well guarded, right?"

"Aye, Cap'n, I doubts very much our fair lass will venture into the men's hold - not by 'erself."

"Good, just checkin'. Though I doubts she'd have any reason t'burn down me ship. Would strand her it would."

"I agree, indeed, sir."

A bit of a pause spanned between them, before Jack's eyes brightened expectantly. As he licked his lips,

"You happ'n t'have a bottle on ya?"

"Thought you might be fancy'in a swig or two," and then Gibbs brought one hand around from behind him, a bottle of rum in his grasp

"Or three!" Jack smiled. After his first mate popped the cork, Sparrow took the proffered container and quickly brought the opened end to his mouth. He drank deeply of its spicy contents. When he swallowed the last of his share, he handed the rum back to his first mate, wiping his mouth dry with the sleeve of his coat, "My gratitude, Mr. Gibbs. Amazin' we're surrounded by water and I still get drier than a beached whale."

"Aye, me too," and then the first mate brought the bottle to his own lips and drank just as thirstily.

Suddenly…

"MR. GIBBS!"

The feminine voice rattled the old sea dog and he quickly tried to hide the bottle behind him. Yet, a telltale dribble of brew running down the man's chin betrayed him. He quickly wiped it away and tried to turn as innocent an expression as he could to the woman.

Yet, Elizabeth Swann easily noticed the bottle of rum. "If you get drunk before we arrive, Mr. Gibbs …"

"I'm only quenching me thirst, lass…"

"He can drink if he wants to, missy," Jack interrupted sternly, casting a sideways glance at the girl, "It is MY ship, after all, and I am the captain."

Elizabeth, with Will behind her, wrinkled her nose as she stepped towards the pirate, "And I can already tell that your bad breath is spicier than normal, so it seems you've quenched your thirst as well?"

"My ship, my rum, don't forget?"

"Yes, hard not to," she sniffed again and then asked, "So, how much longer, CAPTAIN Sparrow?"

"You seem t'be in hurry, missy, like a hungry shark."

"My wedding day continues to wait until Will completes his commitment to you. The sooner we finish with this, the sooner we can return to Port Royal."

"Ah, I see, eager are ye?" Jack smiled, wider this time but he held up his compass, to change the topic, "She's steady and has been for a while. Won't be long, another hour, if that."

"Good, and then what?"

"Then, we gets the gold aboard the Pearl and set sail…for South America."

"And that is where we'll find the Aztecs?" Will asked, as he came alongside his fiancé.

"Remnants only, those who survived the conquistadors' slaughter a 'hunderd' years ago. Mostly priests and priestesses protecting what gold they smuggled past Cortés nose - some of which was the cursed kind, as ye know."

"And reason for our travels, but I thought - the Aztecs were extinct?" Elizabeth queried.

"Mostly assimilated into other tribes, except for a few who kept pure, to themselves, hidden, which is why we're going to South America."

"Is that where they are?"

"Might be, don't really know, luv, but it's where Barbossa was headin' after he mutinied the Pearl." Jack snapped his compass shut and shoved the box into his coat pocket, "It's too bad the rest of the crew didn't escape arrest - or a dance with Jack Ketch, otherwise, we'd have one of 'em tell us where to go." He smiled coyly, his brow cocked mischievously, as he tilted his head. He shrugged on shoulder, though, "Still, we have to start somewheres an' South America's as good as any right now."

"I hope you're right." Elizabeth turned a frustrated profile towards the pirate and gazed out towards the prow of the ship, her jaw set in apprehension. She could see Sparrow's crew working tirelessly along the deck, with some of the men up on the crossbars of the masts, keeping watch or tending sail. The ship itself seemed immersed within the murky atmosphere of the enchanted sea, wisps of fog drifting aimlessly along each level of deck. Somewhere beyond where they sailed, lay the dreaded mystical island, Isla De Muerta, and the cave in which the cursed gold awaited. The young woman sighed, "this fog is quite unsettling; brings back too many - bad memories. The quicker we get what we came for, Jack, and get out of here, the better I'll feel."

"Ah, yes," Jack nodded, understanding the girl's haste, now, "the almost-blood sacrifice, but - no fear - your beloved can do the job, if'n we find ourselves cursed." He smiled wide and nodded once in confirmation.

"Most likely," muttered Gibbs under his breath, his voice low and unsettled. He moved off, however, leaving the trio behind. Slipping silently downstairs to the deck below, he took the bottle of rum with him, with the container of brew tucked firmly under one arm.

"At least this time we go in alone." Turner remarked, breaking the momentary silence. Wrapping an arm around Elizabeth's waist, "I know that no one followed us and no one will, not through this pea soup." He gestured his head towards Sparrow, "not without that compass."

"Aye, I sense no foreseeable problems on th'matter, either." Jack Sparrow then chuckled, as he muttered under his breath "other than chance losin' me rum again to the loony lass."

The pirate stole a glance at Elizabeth as she settled in against Will Turner. While the two of them watched the course ahead, Jack sighed and turned his thoughts to his next task, keeping one hand on the ship's wheel. He knew, after finishing with returning the treasure, that he still had one more problem to deal with. It was a problem of eternal magnitude, too, one requiring him to find a way inside a prison, a job fit for only someone addled in the brain.

Yes, Jack Sparrow knew there were adventures still waiting for him, and it helped, just a little, to know that he was crazy enough to do it, too.

xxxxxxxxxxx

A/N - Yes, I did say this would be a riveting chapter, but it was also originally longer and included the TMNT's - before I decided to break it up. I love torturing my readers, don'cha'know. :0) Call it taking a writer's privilege. By breaking it up, it gave me an extra chapter as a buffer, thereby reducing the stress of trying to create new and exciting stuff. The extra room will allow me extra time, in other word, and a quicker update for all of you. So, next chapter…yes, I mean it this time…will have the 'riveting' part.