Fighter

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Thank You:

*Lenore Raven: I love you ^^ Your reviews make me feel great and keep me writing! Thank you! I hope you'll help me with the vote at the end. ^^

*lemluvspirates and Dana-Black: Thanks guys for reviewing and reading my stories!

*XFVixen: I loved your fic. It has a great idea but I hope Jacks in it soon! ^^ Thanks for your opinion and I hope you can help me on this chapter.

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Fear of Death

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Anamaria looked at River with a confused expression before she heard a yell from Jack's cabin and a scruffy pirate came running up the stairs to the deck, hand bleeding and a red glittering knife in his healthy hand.

"You little whore." The pirate hissed glaring at River, who at the name felt a shiver run through her spine and stiffened.

"I beg your pardon!" Tasmin pulled out her cutlass and gave the pirate a glare of warning. "Strike that, I'm not begging, you best take that back before I gut you." The pirate in front of her pulled out the pistol in his belt and pointed it first at Tasmin, then Anamaria and finally River. Rivulets of blood dripped down his hand and shattered against the wood deck. He cocked the gun grinning like a mad man. River turned her head a closed her eyes as a shot rang out. Squinting one eye open and then the other, in a stupor that she wasn't lying on the deck streaming blood.

"Thats not very nice." River turned to see smoke coming from a very pissed off looking Captain Jack Sparrow's gun. She looked from him to the place where the pirate with plans on killing her had been standing only seconds before. He was now on the deck, still and in a bright crimson puddle. Jack looked to Anamaria. "What the bloody hell is goin' on?"

"Ask 'er." Anamaira nodded to River, obviously interested in the story she had to tell.

"I- I mean, he..." Rivers voice trailed off as she looked at the body of the pirate. Her eyes grew wide with the shock of seeing a dead body. "He came after me, and I stuck the blade through his hand and into the floor of your cabin." River finished quitely. Anamaira shook her head looking somewhat impressed.

"This is yours then?" Jack asked leaning over the body and picking up the bloody blade that had been River's only weapon. She nodded absently and he wiped the blood from the dagger on his pants and handed it to River. She held it in her hand and looked at it for a few moments before smiling to her self, she could fight. This was new, and...Thrilling.

"Feeling OK love?" Jack asked walking next to her. She was showing emotion- a good thing. Tasmin and Anamaira had left them alone to see what they had received from the other ship. River, caught off guard, looked up and around for some one else.

"Yeah." River stuck the dagger in the belt that was holding her pants up. The dagger had just become her best friend. "If you don't have any chores for me, I think your quarters needs a good cleaning." River looked up at Jack to find him watching her, she realized she had been open since she had opened her eyes finding her self alive and not shot. She started to retreat into her shelter. Jack took the step that put them at arms length. He reached out to her face and she flinched, closing her eyes tightly. Jack smirked and removed her glasses.

"Hey! I can't see without those." River opened her eyes, she could see, just not well- usually she used the glasses when reading and could live without them, but she didn't like to- she could hide behind the damn glasses. But Jack was happy, he was seeing *more* emotion. She was confused and, angry.

"Sure you can." Jack insisted with a glint of his gold teeth. River lounged for the hand he was sporting her glasses with, but he moved too quickly.

"I'm at a disadvantage Captain Sparrow." River gritted her teeth. Frustration was something that was getting harder and harder to control on the pirate ship. River stepped closer to reach for her glasses, but her arms fell limp as Jacks lips brushed against her own. It was light and delicate and over in a flash before her glasses were back over her eyes and she was watching dumbfounded as Jack, smirking, walked away and over to the helm with Gibbs.

River touched her lips and started shaking from head to toe. Walking quickly to the captains quarters she picked up a bristle horse hair brush and a bucket of water and rag. She started by cleaning up the blood that had dripped under the captains bed and up to the door. Then sweeping the lose dirt, hair and dust from under the bed, desk chairs and so on and so forth. Her knees started to become sore around noon, and she could hear her tummy screaming at her for food.

"River?" Tasmin called tentavley through the door before opening it and walking in. "The cap'n wants me to tell ye that cooks serving lunch and if you wanna eat that you should come soon." Tasmin grinned. "By the way, nice one, with the dagger and all. Even Anamaria said it took guts for someone like you to stab someones hand clean through to the floor."

"Thanks, I'm coming." River stood and rubbed her knees. Fixing her glasses on her nose where they wouldn't slide down and walking to the door. She followed Tasmin to a room with long tables filled with gruel and hard tack. In the middle there was pig, roast and dried fruit.

"Most greens don't keep well on the sea." River heard Jack comment as she sat down. She noticed that the seat next to her was unoccupied and Jack was soon sitting next to her. River shrugged, never being one for green beans and peas anyway. She silently picked up food, first some meat- not willing to ask what it was- and then a apple and a kiwi. She couldn't help but smile, only the Black Pearl would have Kiwis. "Ye like fruit?" Jack watched with a smirk as River, unceremoniously, started shoving food down her gullet. She had barely eaten in two days, you can't right blame her for being famished.

"Yeah I guess." River had never really thought about liking fruit, she just had. Now that she thought about it- well it didn't even matter. It was just fruit. She took the knife Jack handed her and started pealing the skin off the kiwi. Blah, why did it have to have hair. The food was good but it reminded her of a small animal. Thank God it was green inside or she might not have been able to handle it. Jack smiled knowingly, like he knew something she didn't. River turned to face him. "Yes?" She asked before chewing on a hard piece of hardtack, aware now as to how it got its name. Jack shrugged innocently.

"Ye haven't mentioned the kiss. I was thinking that maybe you had sent it to the little place your hiding the other big secret. Which would put me under the impression that the other secret also had something to do with a man." He finished his discovery lecture and bit into an apple. River paled and stood up ignoring the stares that some of the other pirates were giving her thanks to the interruption. She walked out and Jack nodded. "Thats what I thought." He said more to himself than anyone.

River walked into the captains quarters and sat down on the bed, quickly wiping away a tear that threatened to fall. No crying, she promised herself no crying...Another tear slid down her face and she cursed the world to hell. River cradled her knees and rocked her self back and forth thinking. She might have fallen to sleep if the large wooden door to the captains room hadn't opened. River took a deep breath, unaware that she had been holding it until Tasmin walked in the door.

"You don't seem to hungry for the aftermath of your first battle. I 'member my first battle left me famished as 'ell." Tasmin watched her curiously. What was it with these pirates and wanting to know everything that wasn't their business. The damn ship was starting to remind her of High School with their need for gossip.

"I never said I wasn't hungry." River said placidly. Eyes watching the small circle window on the other side of the room. She could see the high Caribbean sun and a bright sky. Although she wasn't sure how long that would last- in her time her teacher said that storms would come up with out warning in the Caribbean, she wasn't positive the same held true for hundreds of years previous.

"You didn't eat much and then you left in a huff. Wanna talk about it?" Tasmin questioned before turning to see what River was looking at.

"Not really." River looked back to Tasmin. Right now all she wanted to do was go back to her own time, move out of her house, go to college and get a job. But NO. River couldn't have a *normal* life. She had to be thrown back in time and slammed onto a pirate ship in the seventeenth century. God must of had a great sense of humor. Or some stupid writer was controlling every aspect of her life and decided to be a jack ass. "What do you do around here, for fun I mean."

"We get drunk as 'ell!" Tasmin said proudly raising her head. River mawed this over in her head. Humm...Get drunk on a ship with only three females and a bunch of male pirates- or- Stay sober while a bunch of male pirates get drunk...How could she chose...

"I think not" River picked through her things and chose the Edger Allen Poe book. Starting with 'The Tell Tale Heart'. "You have fun though." Tasmin eyed her a few more moments.

"Ye can read?" She asked looking at the exposed cover of the hard leather bound book that River's grandmother had given her that had a black raven etched into the front followed by swirling letters stating the Authors name.

"Yeah." River looked up from her book. "Why?" Tasmin just shrugged and stood up.

"Only some pirates can, and most girls can't." Tasmin smiled. "Its a good talent, since its makes recording brave epics a lot easier." She said with a chuckle, "I myself can't read...speaking I picked up from everyone around me, that's usually how we 'lower classmen' learn...then you become a pirate and slice the throats of all who made fun of ye." River gave a ironic chuckle.

"That could come in handy." River sated .

"What? Not reading?" Tasmin replied back.

"No, slicing the throats of everyone who makes fun of you." River said this last part semi-somberly.

"Well, I still have work to do on deck. Have fun reading." Tasmin tipped her hat and walked out of the cabin, shutting the door behind her. River shrugged her shoulders and started reading again, although she couldn't really concentrate. She could only think about her previous talk with Tasmin. She rolled her eyes as the door opened again and was about to make a retort to Tasmin about reading when she noticed the black dreaded hair.

" 'Ello love." Jack said a little cheerfully. River tried to cover up the groan with a small cough. She sat her book down, seemingly giving up on the reading concept. Didn't pirates ever consider the fact that someone would want privacy? No guess not, and River really didn't want to see Jack right now. "You forgot your food so I thought I would bring it to ye." Jack sat down next to River on the bed, she moved away from him without even thinking about it.

"Er...Thanks." She tilted her head for a moment in thought before taking the plate of food that he was holding out to her. River started pulling off pieces of the stale bread and chewing them silently.

"I thought I would ask the mystery girl a few questions." When River gave Jack a blank look he finished. "Well ye fell onto me ship in the middle of a trip to the Phoenix Islands and all we, we being me and me crew, is yer name." He fingered his braided mustache. "So why don't ye tell me your birthday." Jack had a plan, and this was the start. He wanted some questions answered and he would build up to the one he wanted answered most at the moment. River eyed him surprisingly.

"Its in July, July 17." (A/n: You want to know where I got this date? You do! lol Disneyland opened on this date in 1955! Who says you don't learn something new everyday?!) Jack nodded his head, as if it was something important.

"And how old are ye?" River lowered her eyes to the plate in front of her and picked up the kiwi she had peeled earlier.



"I'll be eight-teen in July..." River took a small bite of the fruit, wiping the excess juice from her chin. This wasn't an answer Jack had been expecting. Sure eight-teen was older in his time then in River's time, but she still seemed to young to have gone through something that had her so unafraid to die and yet afraid of a mans touch.

"Now love, what has ye scared so much that yer not afraid of death?" River opened her mouth to say something but closed it again. "Don't try and deni it. You didn't scream out when a gun was pointed at you and you barely flinched. Not to mention you didn't run screaming at the sight of a dead body. That may have put Anamaria on your side but its got me semi confused as to why a girl like you doesn't talk and welcomes death with opened arms."

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Yeah see, I was thinking that she would tell him but now I'm not so sure. So...Its a vote!!!

I need reviews for this one. At least three, but more is highly welcomed!

Now you need to vote on the following:

Does River tell Jack what happened?

Does she tell him a lie?

OR!!!

Does something happen so that she doesn't have to decide to tell him or not? ex: Anamaria walks in with news or something?