Here is Chapter 21! Sorry for the long wait. I have been starting up the job search since I graduated at the beginning of the month, and before that, I was completely swamped with college work.
I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Sand lifted from the ground forming small funnels as wind snaked across the beach, sending soft whistling noises through the air. Palm trees swayed away from the shore, as though they were cowering in fear. Smoke still rose from the hut, intertwining with itself in a braid reaching up to the blue Caribbean sky.
He emerged from the jungle first, and the rising sun illuminated his bronze face. He stopped at the edge of the palm tree forest and laid the side of his hand flat against his forehead to block out the bright light.
"They're here," she said, a hard edge to her voice.
He lowered his eyes to look to his right and gave her a curt nod.
"I am right once in awhile," and then he turned for a moment to gaze at her face, smirking when her cheeks became stained with the smallest hint of a blush.
"So, what is the plan? Are you going to orchestrate some kind of grand hijacking?"
Now he turned to fully face her, his long black hair framing his face. She recoiled as though she was remembering the last time she asked him to disclose his plans to her.
"No, I already told you, I work best alone. At least on matters like this."
She glanced over his shoulder at the ship that was growing larger with every passing second.
"I may have been sarcastic about suggesting that you involve the entire crew, but surely you don't mean to take the entire ship by yourself?"
He tilted his head in mild annoyance. "I can't tell if you lack faith in me, or if you are concerned for my well-being."
"There are probably more than twenty crew on that-"
"No, most of them are currently rowing towards shore. Did Will never tell you how we managed to commandeer the Dauntless?" he asked, cutting her off. She wanted to shout at him.
"Bits and pieces. Never the whole story. Mostly he focused on how you managed to use your overinflated reputation to bluff your way through," she said tightly.
He raised an eyebrow at that and tilted his head in a challenge for her to elaborate.
"I think he believed that if I was told too much, I would reminisce about it," she added with a clipped voice, ignoring him.
"Will always did want to box you up into a neat little package. I fear that he was and is incapable of seeing you as anything other than 'Miss Swann'. Probably why he can barely look at you now."
Her mouth dropped open slightly. "Excuse me? I beg to differ. Will would have certainly been supportive of whatever it is that I had wanted to do-"
"Sure, as long as it meant sipping tea in corsets and giving him children. Did you know that he nearly tried to run me through when I revealed that his father was actually a pirate?"
The skin of her fist turned a splotchy red and white color as she clenched it against her vest.
He sighed. "Your fantasy of William being a pirate hopefully died the moment that you returned home after the Isla de Muerta business. That boy is no more a pirate than I am a chambermaid. Had I never fished you out of the harbor, I can guarantee that Will would have tried to turn you into a broodmare."
"How dare you! I would have never allowed him to-"
"Oh Christ, Elizabeth. I said he would try. I didn't say anything about him succeeding. Actually, I figure that you might have just left him before he ever managed to convince you to go to bed with him. And while we are on that topic, I highly doubt that you would have ever been satisfied with his-"
Her hand struck out, impacting his face with a harsh exactness. His head snapped slightly to the left, and he clenched his teeth together in irritation causing the muscles of his jaw to contort.
The slap burned, and his cheek tingled for quite a while afterward, but the fury in her eyes was worth it. He loathed to admit it, but she was beautiful when she was angry, much like the sea during a storm.
"Funny that you don't deny it. Then again, you killed me because you felt something for me. I would hate to see what you would do to a man that you were bored with," he snapped, refusing to rub his smarting skin.
"I betray men that I am bored with, for men that certainly don't deserve the attention. And for your information, I would have been quite satisfied with anything Will offered me."
"Right, because a man that actually makes you wait for anything other than light kisses until your wedding night is going to give you the performance of a lifetime. I would give him maybe a minute and a half, and that's being generous," he shot back, bracing himself for another slap.
It didn't come. Instead, she stepped a little closer to him, a predatory look on her face.
"And you? You're getting on in years, you probably haven't had any of that kind of company for a while, and you spend all your time fantasizing about me. I might give you five minutes. And that's being generous."
A very slow and dangerous smile stretched across his face. "Unfortunately for you, Lizzie, it is highly unlikely that you are ever going to get the opportunity to test that theory. And I am not the only one with fantasies. If I might recall, it was you that described me taking you against the rock back there."
"You hardly seemed disinterested in that description," she argued, but the anger had left her voice, replaced by resignation. He gazed at her for a moment, a strange emotion attempting to strangle his chest. Regret? He couldn't identify it.
"Anyways, we snuck up the back of it from the water, and I held Lieutenant Gillette at gunpoint. Threatened him with death or something I think, hard to remember. Needless to say, the entire crew practically fell overboard trying to get onto the longboat. A fruitless task that was, seeing as how the Interceptor nearly obliterated them," Jack explained.
She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off again.
"Royal Navy soldiers are cowards when confronted with actual confrontation."
"And were you the exception?"
His eyes widened a fraction in surprise. "How did you know-"
"I inferred from the way Beckett talked about you that you had a past history. It only makes sense that you worked for him."
"No, I was not the exception, because I was never a Royal Navy soldier. Sure, I wore the uniform and did what Beckett told me, at least most of the time, but I was always a pirate."
He looked back around and surveyed the scene quickly, before turning back to face her with a gleam in his eyes.
"Don't worry, I never said that you won't get any excitement from this whole ordeal. While I could take that ship should it harbor the entire crew on board, I won't have to."
She inclined her head in the direction of the beach.
"Yes, they are lowering long boats now. Groves will stay on board with his best officers, and send the rest to collect us. You're right, they are cowards. So, what am I to do on shore?"
He turned to face the spot where the longboats were heading and gestured with his hand as he explained the plan.
"You are going to go over there and tell Gibbs and Will that you are to ambush them the second their feet hit the sand. They won't expect any of you to have the energy for fighting."
"You mean for us to kill them?"
He closed his eyes and imagined her face going stark white the moment she experienced her first kill in battle.
"No, obviously not. Though if the situation escalates to that, I would certainly expect you to act accordingly. You didn't have a problem with murdering me. Do a few soldiers really matter to you?"
Immediate anger was painted across her face. However, she said nothing in response to his barb.
"So a hostage situation then. I suppose they could have some use alive. What about you? Are you going to keep the men on board the ship as hostages?" she said, her face flushed from the mounting irritation.
"What I do with my part in this is my business, not yours. And I will tell you now to waste no time being concerned with anyone but yourself should things get ugly. A person's only true weakness in battle is trying to protect someone else."
She looked like she wanted to argue something further but wisely decided against it. After looking back at the ship for a quick check of the situation, he began removing his effects.
His pistol nearly plummeted to the ground when he shoved it into her hands, along with his sword, hat, and coat.
"What are you-"
"You don't suppose I am going to swim all the way over to the ship while being weighed down by all of this, do you? Go ahead and use my pistol and sword if you like. Just don't ruin them."
He was clad now in just his belts and breeches, white shirt, waist scarf, and bandana. His boots were sitting next to her feet. Something shiny caught the light of the sun in his right hand, and she stared at it for a moment before she realized that he clutched a small dagger. She raised a dark brow.
"You are going to take command of the entire ship with that?"
Before she realized what was happening, he had quickly circled around behind her, and locked both of her arms behind her back with his own, causing all of his effects to tumble to the ground. Her feet slid in the hot sand, and she fell back against him to keep herself upright. She barely contained her gasp when he pressed the blade of the dagger against the soft skin of her neck.
When he was sure that she wasn't going to struggle, he released her wrists, and slid his hand down to grip her hip just hard enough to make her listen, and let his lips brush against her neck as he spoke.
"Here is your first lesson as a fledgling pirate, darling. There is almost nothing that won't do as a weapon should the need arise. The only real issue is whether you have the skill to wield it. As you can see, I do. I suggest that you learn to stop questioning my competence if you expect to be on remotely good terms with me for the foreseeable future."
The curve of her body against his made him forget himself for a moment, and then he got caught by surprise when her fingers curled around his wrist to pry the dagger away from her throat. She turned to face him slowly. Her cheeks were stained red, and her eyes had darkened. Her pulse was jumping in her neck, and he had the sudden urge to wrap his mouth around the sun-kissed skin.
A frozen moment passed where they just gazed at one another, and then Elizabeth backed away quickly and gathered up all of his effects.
"I expect that you are going to give us some kind of signal when you have the ship secured?" she questioned, avoiding eye contact.
"No. I planned on sailing off into the distance without you," he snarked. He earned a frustrated snort in response. That was only a half-joke. It had, in fact, crossed his mind.
She finally looked up at him but was only rewarded with his retreating back as he stalked towards the water.
The water was cool as he stepped into it, the sand filling in the spaces between his toes.
The longboats were heading in the direction of Gibbs and the rest of the crew, and neither they nor the soldiers had appeared to spot him or Elizabeth. From the distance that he was standing, it looked like they had left Groves and three or four crew members on board. The ship shared the same kind of structure as the Dauntless, which meant that Groves would be housed in the main cabin in the front of the ship.
Elizabeth was stalking through the sand behind him in the direction of the rest of the crew when he quickly glanced back to look at her. Good. Her involvement in his affairs was not something that he was fully prepared to factor in yet. Especially after the conversation that they had just had. There was nothing quite like feeling both uncontrollable hate and the urge to protect her at the same time, and he was not sure which side of that dynamic would win.
HMS Voyager could be made out on the side of the ship as it sat in the water. It was a handsome ship, with pristine white sails and a fresh wood staining. But just like all of the other ships in the Royal Navy, it lacked character. Even his own ship, The Wicked Wench, had lacked something special that made it stand out from the rest of the fleet. That was, of course, until Davy Jones summoned it from the depths. It had returned to him, and it had retained the charred visage that it went down with. He had rechristened it as The Black Pearl, and it had become the terror of the Caribbean.
Now it was gone because of the very deal that he had made to get it back. The world was cruel, but he could not say that the world was not occasionally just.
What was not just was Elizabeth's complete ignorance his own skills. He expected that her doubt of the stories that were told about him contributed to it. Even so, most of the stories had truth hidden within them, and most of the time, the truth was far more harrowing than the myth.
Sitting alone on a deserted island for any length of time in the Caribbean with the knowledge that you may never leave could make a man go insane. Pirates are provided a pistol with which to end their miserable suffering. That temptation makes a man feel comfortable with the insanity. When Elizabeth had scoffed at him after learning that his weeks and weeks of being stranded on the rum runner's island was in reality only three days, he had half a mind to leave her there if they ever escaped.
Of course, that plan was killed as soon as her plan came to fruition. She could have burned the entire bloody island down to make a signal fire, as long as she had left his rum alone, and her rescuers would have named him King of England before they allowed her to be left behind.
His face had been screwed up into a grimace at that memory, and it became even more so when he remembered what he was going to have to do to pull this whole thing off.
His experience with infiltration was limited, but any fool knew that silence and patience were the keys. Unfortunately, all of the trinkets that were tied into his hair needed to go. He clutched the dagger, rose it to his head, and methodically began to cut everything out besides the strand of beads that hung over his bandana. Once it was all removed, he placed it all into a little pouch that hung from one of his belts.
Smoothing a hand through his hair to make sure he didn't miss anything, he quickly scanned the ship with a small spyglass that he had tied to one of his belts. All of the crew members were standing on the right side of the ship, so it would be best to go up the left side.
Steeling himself for the task ahead of him, he dove into the water and swam.
She stomped through the sand towards the crew, still a little frazzled from the events from earlier by the pool of water, and she could still feel the sharp edge of Jack's dagger against her throat.
Jack's sword was now hanging from her hip, and his pistol was shoved into her belt. She wore his hat on top of her head, even though it was a bit too large for her, and she clutched his coat in her right hand.
Occasionally, she would glance back at the swimming figure that she could barely make out, attempting to picture him threatening Groves to give up the ship. After the demonstration earlier, she had an easier time of it.
Everything since bringing Jack back from the Locker felt incredibly bizarre no matter how many ways she tried to analyze it. Jack's mood seemed to swing back and forth far quicker than she could catch on. She could not get a handle on what was going on inside his mind, and she certainly did not gain any concrete answers from anything he said.
At the moment, she felt like she was stuck in a strange sort of calm before the real animosity between them made itself known. Jack had been angry with her the last couple of days but had given her no indication that she was a definite enemy to him. His behavior suggested that he was incredibly conflicted. Lucifer, from what she understood, had dredged up quite a bit of his past, so between that, what she had done to him, and his apparent feelings towards her before that, it must be a maelstrom within his thoughts.
She had taken their smooth banter and ease of company for granted during her days on the Pearl while they were heading to Isla Cruces, and she desperately wanted it back now. Perhaps something would change once they acquired this ship.
All she could do now was avoid provoking him to re-evaluate the apparent tolerance for her, even if it had the potential to undo itself without her interference. Everything was going to be hanging in a very delicate balance and in the world of pirates, a balance rarely lasted.
Gibbs looked around at her when she approached. The silent question of Jack's whereabouts hung between them. As an answer, she inclined her head in the direction of the ship. He closed his eyes for a moment in resignation.
"Of course the daft bugger means to take it alone," he said, shaking his head.
"You don't think he can do it?" she asked.
He watched the ship for a moment more. "Oh no, I have no doubt that he can do it. Did he give you any orders?"
She had been watching the longboats approaching while she listened to Gibbs. They did not look like they were unprepared to fight. They had their hands hovering in the vicinity of their swords and they were glaring at the lot of them.
"Yes, he told me to organize an ambush, but I don't think they are going to be susceptible."
"I wouldn't say that. Perhaps we can reach a happy medium between ambushing and intimidating. Take a page out of Jack's book. Give them a warning shot," Will chimed in.
A shot into the sky would not do much besides confuse them, but she had a better idea that might rattle them a bit.
She drew Jack's pistol from her belt and checked it to make sure it was ready to fire. The soldiers stared at her as their boats touched the shore. She could not tell if they were confused because it was her with a pistol, or because one of them was preparing to fire at them.
"Miss Swann, please place the gun on the ground. We mean to cause no conflict."
Gibbs smirked at them, and she raised a sculpted eyebrow. Two soldiers in the front jerked back a bit when she took aim and fired at one of their hats.
The soldier's eyes bugged out of his head when it flew clean off of his head, landing in the water behind them.
"We mean no conflict either, but there will be one if you do not follow my instructions," she barked, lowering the gun and sliding it back into her belt. "What is your name, officer?"
"Lieutenant Sheffield," he said, after collecting himself. He motioned for them to climb out of the longboats onto the shore. She watched their movement carefully.
"Well, Lieutenant Sheffield, you have two choices. You and your crew can either become residents of this lovely coastline," she said, motioning behind her. "Or, you can cooperate and assist us in the voyage back to Tortuga."
He scoffed immediately at the mention of that. "Tortuga? Why on earth would you want to go to Tortuga?"
"All of us have business to attend to in Tortuga, but that is none of your concern."
One of the other men chimed in. "Miss Swann, I don't know what authority you think you have over us, but this is not a situation in which any of you have the upper hand. We are here to take you back to Port Royal, and back to Lord Beckett."
"If Beckett wanted us so bad, he could have come and collected us himself. As far as my authority, I have the blessings from our Captain to engage you in whichever way I see fit," she shot back.
When she mentioned Jack, all of them looked around as though they were under the impression that he had been there the whole time.
"And where is your illustrious Captain, Miss Swann? Last I heard, you had just rescued him from Davy Jone's Locker. Surely he is not fit to give anyone any orders," Sheffield sneered.
She looked past him to the ship and smiled slowly.
"Perhaps you missed something that I said. I believe I stated that you have an option to accompany us on the voyage to Tortuga. You didn't think we were going to make that journey in a longboat, did you?"
Sheffield stared at her a moment, confusion washing over his face. With hesitation, he looked around at the ship behind them and then whipped his head back around to continue staring at her with a much different expression.
"Do you mean to tell me that Sparrow is taking our ship?" he snapped, turning his body to the side to jab a finger at the vessel in question.
"I would wager a guess that he is threatening your captain with bodily harm right at this very moment," Gibbs boasted.
"I am sorry to tell you that Sparrow is wasting his time. He will never succeed by himself."
"So the story about how Jack and I single-handedly commandeered the Dauntless and the Interceptor doesn't get told to low-ranking officers such as yourself? Pity," Will countered.
She glanced at him in appreciation. When he didn't return the look, she shifted her gaze back to the offending man.
"As you can see, we have no reason to expect our Captain to fail. Your crew, on the other hand…"
Sheffield's face turned a unique shade of red before he suddenly drew his sword.
She responded by drawing Jack's sword a moment later, the rest of them following suit on both sides.
"Just remember that I did offer you a way of out this, Lieutenant."
"It will be you begging for us to spare your lives, Miss Swann."
He lunged forward when the rest of the officers did, slashing his blade through the air. A look of shock covered his face when she easily blocked it. Clouds of sand were kicked up as he stepped back from her to quickly reevaluate his approach.
"I will have you know that I learned from the two best swordsmen that I have ever seen. You are not going to win this fight."
"Cockiness has caused many of the best swordsmen to lose, Miss Swann. Don't forget that," the lieutenant replied.
She didn't respond. Instead, she struck, stepping forward before he realized what was happening. When he barely managed to block her blow, she slid her blade off his and went for his shoulder. She glowered at him when he jerked out of the sword's path.
"So, after Tortuga, what is your plan?" he questioned.
She eyed him suspiciously. She knew that he was trying to distract her, and she took the bait on purpose, interested in any information that he might reveal.
"Why?" she snapped, brandishing her sword.
A smug look crossed his face. "Well, the people of Port Royal certainly won't welcome you back if you attempt to return on your own. You are branded as a pirate now, Miss Swann, regardless of who your father is."
"I am well aware. Lord Beckett saw to that when he arrested Will and me for helping Jack escape the hangman's noose, despite the fact that Jack never deserved to be there in the first place."
The man shook his head disdainfully. "Your idea of who deserves what needs some reworking, as does your idea of the proper path for a woman such as yourself."
She tightened her face. "The only path for me at the moment is putting this sword through your alcohol-inflated stomach."
She lunged forward again, expecting his block, and withdrew for only a second before slashing at his arm, catching him just above the wrist.
He stumbled back, clutching his wounded limb, and swore at her.
"My my, what would your father say about you now, gallivanting with pirates."
"My father has nothing to do with this."
"Oh, your father has everything to do with this."
A twinge of fear invaded her body. He straightened up and seemed to catch on to the shift in her mood.
"Perhaps you might want us to take you back to Port Royal after all."
"What are you talking about?" she hissed.
When he didn't respond, she angrily slashed her blade at him catching him clean across his chest. Blood quickly bloomed through his shirt, and the commotion around her became an imperceptible blur of noise and color. He stumbled back, this time losing his footing. Another cloud of sand burst up from the ground when he fell onto his back, his face screwed up in a pained grimace.
She stepped forward and knelt next to him. She placed Jack's sword under the man's chin against his neck.
"You are going to tell me what has happened to my father or so help me, I will bury you in this sand," she growled.
He coughed, and weakly pawed at the wound on his chest. She pressed the blade of the sword harder into his skin.
"Let's just say that his usefulness to Lord Beckett has run its course. If you are wanting to see him again, I would suggest Port Royal as your next stop, but it might be too late by then."
She sucked in an angry breath, withdrew the sword, and smashed the man in the face with her fist as hard as she could. He was immediately knocked out cold.
She stood, and saw that the rest of the officers were either indisposed or deceased. Will studied her for a moment, before turning his gaze to Lieutenant Sheffield. He raised one eyebrow in a silent question. She considered her response for a moment before she decided that no one needed to know what was going on. It was her private business.
"Nothing. Just a conflict of interest."
Will nodded, but seemed dissatisfied. Gibbs was studying her as well, but it was more of a calculative stare instead of Will's judgment.
They secured the living and sent the dead to be claimed by the sea. Then, they all sat and waited. After ten minutes or so went past, Gibbs finally broke the tense silence.
"Did Jack tell you how he was going to sig-"
He was cut off by the distinct sound of cannon fire in the distance.
"Ah. Well, we will need to make the trip in two rounds. Elizabeth, Tia, Pintel, Ragetti, and I will go in the first longboat. Will, you will come with me when I return. We will ferry the prisoners and Jack can decide what to do with them when we get to the ship."
He looked at her for approval, and she nodded.
"Let's go."
His arms were just starting to ache when he latched onto a rope hanging from the side of the ship. Taking a moment to flounder in the water, he looked up and studied the tall vessel. There was a line of small handholds that led up to the railing. He should be able to map out a way to get into the captain's cabin without being seen by the rest of the crew.
Before starting to climb, he looked back at the coastline. The longboats had just arrived, and he could barely make out the Navy officers and his crew. No one looked to be fighting yet.
Choosing to ignore them for the moment, he began to climb. Water cascaded off of his hair adding even more weight to his already soaked shirt and vest.
Halfway up, he heard a gunshot off in the distance. He shifted to the right, keeping a tight grip on the handhold with his right hand, and produced the spyglass again.
The officers were climbing out of the longboats, and Elizabeth had his pistol pointed at the one in the front. She must have given them a warning shot. Perhaps these officers were better informed about their fighting skills than he thought.
Shaking his head, he finished the climb to the top of the ship, and then stopped for a moment to rest. He positioned himself so that he could just see over the edge of the ship through the gaps in the railing. There were five crew members bustling around towards the front of the ship, and he could smell smoke coming from the captain's cabin. Groves must already be in there.
The cabin had two entrances. There were the main double doors in the front and a smaller door around the right side. Going through the front would be doable, but that approach had more of a chance of alerting Groves. He tried to listen for movement inside the cabin, but the only sounds coming from anything was the creaking of the ship and the chatter of the crew members.
He shimmied to the right a bit, and then very quietly hoisted himself up and over the railing. Keeping a side-eye on the men on deck, he took calculated steps towards the back entrance of the cabin and then flattened himself against the wall. There was a small window next to the door, which provided a perfect opportunity to get a visual on what was going on inside.
Groves was knelt over a chest, rummaging for something. The memory of commandeering the Interceptor still brought a smirk to his face, if only for the dumbfounded look on Groves' face, along with the immensely displeased look on Norrington's.
Pushing himself off of the cabin wall, he placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it without making a sound. The old familiar smell of tobacco wafted into his face, and there was also a pungent smell of alcohol lingering in the air. He carefully slipped through the small gap he had made for himself, keeping an eye on the captain.
The door would most likely creak if he closed it, so he left it alone. To the right was a handsome desk covered in various papers and a few candles. A deep red rug adorned the floor, and bookcases lined the walls, but they were mostly empty. A small bed was tucked into the left corner, and a nightstand with a lantern sat next to it.
He waited until the captain closed the trunk, using the noise it made to cross the room quickly without being noticed. He gripped the man by the back of the jacket and hauled him up, immediately ending any chance of struggle with his dagger pressing into the slightly exposed skin of his neck.
"Long time no see. In fact, last time we saw each other, you were watching me sail away into the distance with the Interceptor, Theodore."
The Navy captain stood very still, well aware that any wrong move could cost him his life.
"Captain Sparrow, I presume."
"Aye. I expect that me turning up here is a bit of a surprise. Since none of you have any knowledge of the Locker and how it works, I'm going to wager a guess that you thought I would be close to dead upon rescue."
"No, we did not expect you to be...functioning. But here you are, threatening me."
He searched the man's uniform for any weapons and threw the small pistol in the left pocket behind him.
"I presume that Jones told Beckett about my untimely demise?"
Groves shifted his weight a bit, making him to reassert the presence of the dagger.
"Yes, he gave us some...inside information. Let's just say that Lord Beckett has command of the sea now, due to a little gift from our mutual friend James Norrington."
He raised an eyebrow and spun the man around to face him, placing the knife just above his jugular vein.
"Aye, the heart of Davy Jones for his new title and authority. It was a smart move, really."
"I also heard a rumor that Elizabeth Swann was responsible for your demise."
The dagger was pressed a little harder into the man's throat.
"Oh, I'm sure that Jones couldn't wait to communicate that little detail."
Despite flinching from the pain of the shallow cut appearing on his skin, the Navy captain kept taunting him.
"That one, yes, but there were some details that were lost in translation, I think. Lord Beckett saw to that."
A moment passed while he reviewed all of the ways that he had imagined murdering Cutler Beckett, and it made him feel marginally better.
"What kind of details?" he snapped.
Groves shook his head. "Sorry Captain, but I am not authorized to tell you any more information on the matter."
He debated questioning the man further but then realized that Gibbs and the rest of his crew were probably getting rather restless. It was time to move this commandeering along.
"Fine, keep your information to yourself for now. I'll figure it out eventually. For now, you are going to come with me outside and you are going to announce that you are giving up your captaincy of this ship to me. You will see to it that your crew accepts my position, and you are going to do all of this without complaint. Is that clear?"
The two men stood in silence for a moment, before Groves responded.
"And if I don't comply? What then?"
He closed his eyes briefly, weighing his options.
"Most of the time, I try to avoid killing people, so I would like to continue that tradition here. However, if you make this difficult for me, I will bring you outside as a corpse, and when your crew sees that I dispatched you with relative ease, fear will force them to submit to me. It's your choice, Captain."
"Fine, I will grudgingly hand the ship over to you, Captain Sparrow, on one condition."
He tilted his head, wondering why the man thought it prudent to attempt negotiations when he had just heard threats to his life.
"And what's that?"
"When we reach Tortuga since I presume that that is where we are going, I want to count on you to ensure that we blend in well enough to avoid immediate...reactions."
He very nearly laughed at that.
"You want me to make the lot of you look like pirates."
Groves nodded. "I can't imagine that any pirate would take kindly to the Royal Navy suddenly turning up on their doorstep."
He lowered the knife and shoved it into his belts, and then turned to pick up the pistol that he had thrown earlier.
"No, they wouldn't. I agree to those terms if only to make the entire arrival less annoying for me."
"Always the selfish pirate, Captain Sparrow."
He had to at least appreciate the man for his sense of humor.
"Well, why don't we start with you now. Lose that god awful uniform, or at least the jacket, and throw the wig overboard. In fact, just burn it."
Once the Navy captain was clad in just his white shirt and pants, his straw-brown hair hanging just past his shoulders, Jack nodded, satisfied.
"Good enough. Let's go," he said, making sure to remind Theodore that he still had possession of the pistol, and would not hesitate to use it.
He let the other man lead the way to the double doors, and when they swung open, they both stepped through.