Her blood was the first thing to move after the door shut.  She felt it rush to her head, heated by anger. 

            He'd locked her in, the mangy cur.

            Almost as an afterthought, Amelia ducked her head and looked, as best she could, down her bodice.  "Oh, heavens," she sighed, seeing several freckles indeed peeking out over the top edge of the dress.  Embarrassment layered over anger, and Amelia called Jack a few more names for good measure.

            Turning to face the interior of the cabin rather than that blasted, heavy wooden door, Amelia tapped a finger to her lips and studied her surroundings.  The area was slightly cleaner, several of the piles of laundry gone,her cot clearl visible now.  There was no way she'd be able to sleep, knowing what was going on outside.  As her eyes lit on the thick spreads adorning Jack's bed, she smiled wickedly.

            If she was to be locked away like a fugitive, then she'd by God do some exploring.

~~~

            It was almost too easy, Jack mused his feet hit the deck of the merchant ship.  It was as though these people had forgotten there were pirates and mistakenly thought they were safe,

            People had apparently forgotten Captain Jack Sparrow.  Worse yet, his crew seemed to have forgotten their purpose entirely.

            "Let's sink 'em," one young man had proclaimed excitedly, jostling Jack's arm and nearly jumping up and down. 

            It was hard to be patient with callow youth.

            "Let us take a moment, Charles," Jack had said, turning to the man, "And reflect on our mission, shall we?  Take what you can…" he paused, seeing if his crew member would finish the unofficial motto.  When he didn't, Jack merely sighed and continued to speak.  "Give nothing back.  How will we do that if we send it all to the bottom of the ocean floor?" 

            Charles had merely looked dumbfounded.

            Now, however, with a few select members of his crew slinking about the heavily-laden ship, Jack smiled.  The rich were such easy—and deserving—targets. 

            "Halt."  The faint scrape of steps sounded to Jack's left, and he turned, hands already raised, an amicable smile lifting his lips.  A tall, thin man held a pistol pointed at Jack's head, his eyes shifty but continually falling back to Jack.

            "Just the man I wanted to see," Jack said jovially, stepping toward the man and watching with enjoyment as his quarry, though armed, took a step in retreat. 

            "Take another step and I'll put a ball through that filthy brain of yours."  The man, well-dressed enough to make Jack believe he was the shillings behind the ship, brandished the gun in the way cowards and the afraid always did. 

            "Then I suppose it's in my best interest to stop, aye?"  Jack did so, bowing deeply, mockingly. 

            "Damned pirates," the man said, sweat popping out on his brow as the sounds of shouts and scuffles carried from other parts of the ship.  "Haven't you seen all the others of your kind, hung all over the seas?"

            As threats went, Jack judged it as pitiful. 

            "Hanged," he said through his teeth, exasperated.  "They've been hanged, you fool, not hung."  Leaning forward, hands still aloft, he widened his eyes and spoke in a low, silky voice.  "You know, mate, I've actually been hanged before.  To be perfectly honest, which I rarely am, so you'd better listen, all it did was make me a mite taller."

            The nearly-whispered statement, combined with the sound of a nearby gunshot, was all it took to have the man cold on the planks of the ship.  Sighing disgustedly, Jack kicked the man's weapon away and went to work emptying his pockets.

            It was just too damned easy.

~~~

            Amelia was starting to think her bunkmate owned precious little.  In a half an hour of searching, all she'd found were an apple, a pair of badly scarred boots, and a stunningly heavy dagger with a jeweled hilt.  That, she thought as she threw a narrow-eyed glance at the door, might come in handy when Sir Sparrow himself saw fit to come back.

            In a last effort to find something to occupy her mind, she swept a small hand under the bed and felt her fingertips brush something solid.  She didn't bother holding in the gasp that came when she closed her fingers around the object and identified it.  A book, any book other than her own two, was precious indeed.  As she withdrew it from its hiding place and held it to the light, a small smile shaped her lips.  The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Rome was inked lightly on the cover, no author indicated. 

            Sitting on the floor, the dagger in her lap, Amelia began to flip through the pages gingerly, stopping with reverence at a cunning drawing of Venus.

            As she looked closer, Amelia drew a short breath, snatching her hand away from the page.  "Oh, my," she whispered suddenly, her eyes drawn to the upper right corner of the page, where several inky fingerprints dotted the paper.

~~~

            He'd ordered them to leave the ship intact and leave everyone on it relatively unharmed.  After all, if they sunk the ship and the people on it, who would spread the refurbished word of Captain Jack Sparrow's nefarious reputation?

            "Down to the holds men, Gibbs be the clinker for the evening.  Give 'im what ye got, he'll give ye what ye deserve."  Turning in a circle, looking at his men, he bowed grandly.  "Of course, I deserve the most, and so the lion's share will be given to me."

            Good-natured insults were thrown about the gathered crowd, dying down as one of the crewmen shouted out his opinion.  "Gibbs give me what I deserve, aye?  Such a good boy I been, I deserves a bit of that missy ye're hidin' in yer cabin."

            The next few moments would be replayed in the minds of every crewman on the ship, and every man would remember it a different way.  Gibbs would his credit own amazement to the gin he'd been drinking, young Charles would tell the story as honestly as he could, with the exaggeration only the very young or very old can muster.  Anamaria would not tell the story at all, but remember feeling just a little regret.  Jack himself would reluctantly attribute the move to post-raid aggression. 

            Though the throng of men was thick around Jack, he drew his sword so quickly and surely that none of them saw it until it was among them, the point sharp and gleaming in the moonlight, pointed at one crewman's throat.

            He'd had no sure way of knowing whose words had carried above the group, but he had, and his reaction was quicker than any of them had every imagined.

            Jack stared down the length of his sword at the now-trembling man at the end of it, one eyebrow cocked negligently, his body relaxed rather than tense.  "Daniel, isn't it?"  The man swallowed and nodded with the barest of movements.  "Though I realize we're pirates, Daniel, rogues and thieves, I'm a pretentious sort, and I like to flash the gentleman now and then, savvy?"  Another barely stirring nod.  "Good.  Then if you can keep yourself from having enough tongue for two sets of teeth, I'm quite certain we'd all feel better about the matter."  And with that, the sword was back in its sheath, Jack stalking toward the cabin.

            The Black Pearl had never been so silent.