Two dark heads bent over the same table, as though conspiring to do evil, one speaking in halting, dulcet tones, the other appearing to listen intently. 

            "'Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me all strange wonders that befell thee, and swear no where lives a woman true, and fair.'"  Anamaria glanced up at her tutor as though for approval, and added quietly, "That be a lie.  I've met a woman true and fair."

            Amelia looked at the pirate sharply.  "That's not part of the poem, Anamaria."  Taking the book from her charge, she shut it gently.  "Excellent job on the existing text, however.  I hardly think you needed my assistance at all."

            Anamaria drummed her fingers on the table, impatient with the unspoken words humming in the air, the thick atmosphere that had settled over the ship, and in particular, the captain and his stowaway.  "So what is it yer goin' to do now?  Now that ye've finished yer end of the deal with the cap'n?" 

            Amelia rubbed at her eyes, trying to stem the tears that had been just below the surface all day.  She had, as the saying went, jumped from the pan and into the fire.  She'd been too stupid to see that danger came in many forms, and a bruised heart was perhaps more dangerous than a bruised body. 

            She knew there were women who would lament their reputation at such a time, who would bewail the loss of innocence or the scandal that accompanied the actions she'd provoked.  But she had no care for that, no care for the thoughts of people she had yet to meet and yet to know.

            She had care for the thoughts of a particular man.

            "Now that I've upheld my end of the agreement, Anamaria, I suppose the captain will inform me when it would be expedient for me to leave."  The early morning lovemaking seemed years away, but the feel of his hands seemed only seconds past.  And Anamaria, the only other woman on the ship, had a very valid point.

            It was quite time for Amelia to go.

            "'Tisn't daft I am, high-nose.  If ye thinks I can't see what's happened, it's crazy y'are.  Ye don't want t'leave any more than I wanted to read, missy."  Anaramia crossed her arms, an arch look dignifying her exotic features.  She was rewarded with Amelia's reaction, the color first dropping sharply from her face then returning in excess, the blood staining her cheeks.

            "We're finished here.  You may have loan of the Donne book until I leave, Anamaria."  Amelia stood, closing her eyes against the roiling nausea that threatened her.  "I've tolerated your company more than I thought I could have."

            "Same to ye," Anamaria said, tracing her hands over the cover of the book and looking at the woman before her, a sad compatriot, one of Jack Sparrow's lost women.

            Anaramia had some questions to ask the captain.

~~~
            Though it shamed her that Jack was right, she'd been famished for the first time since boarding the ship. 

            Amelia had eaten slowly, lending herself the courage to do what had to be done, picking over every word in her mind, every phrase, trying to anticipate any resistance he might give her.

            She didn't think he'd give her any.  After the way she'd acted, he probably wanted her off the ship more than she wanted off herself.

            She approached his cabin slowly, counting the steps it took her to get from the mess table to the quarterdeck, and then the steps it took to get to his cabin.  She stopped approximately four steps short at the sound of voices.

            "Though you have my absolute trust, Gibbs, I'm reluctant to leave the ship.  However, a man has certain needs, and needs, by definition, are a necessity.  There's a particular necessity I'm after."  Amelia stepped just far enough to see Jack's hands, drumming on the small table in the corner, rings flashing and winking with the light.  Every so often a hand would stop and float listlessly in the air, punctuating a sentence. 

            "Aye, we all know about ye and yer needs, cap'n," Gibbs chortled, ending in a cough.  "Though it sounds like to me it's nothing you can't get from the missy."

            "What I can get from Amelia has no novelty."

            Amelia pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, stifling the cry that wanted to come.  She'd felt pity for this man, and the things he was saying now were making her sick.  She watched the restless fingers on the scarred surface of the wood and felt bile rise in her throat. 

            She tried desperately to identify the feelings inside her as revulsion, as anger, as anything other than despair and jealousy, but failed miserably.  Squeezing her eyes shut, Amelia continued to listen, determined to hear the sordid conversation out to its end. 

            She had acted as she wanted; she would take the consequences as they came.  Faust had paid a severe price for his transgressions, she reminded herself.  Surely a little hurt wouldn't be nearly as bad as suffering eternal damnation.  But at the moment, she felt as though hellfire would be a welcome mercy.

            "I want you to take the ship only close enough to shore for a boat to reach.  I do not want to make port, I only want you to drop anchor for little more than an hour.  It's really quite imperative that you not come closer to shore, or else the missy, as you call her, will leave the ship before you can draw a pistol."  He stood then, making Amelia gasp and draw further away from the door.  "That'll be all, Gibbs.  If the men ask where I am, tell them I've a bit of business to conduct on land."  She could hear the grin in his voice.  "I'm a trig businessman, aye?"

            Gathering her skirts, Amelia turned and fled before he could see her.  She'd rather be hanged than show him any more of her tears.

~~~

            He'd kept to himself since the captain had threatened him, slinking low around the ship like a frequently punished dog, his eyes bright and watchful, wary and waiting.  All Daniel reckoned he needed was proper opportunity.  On a ship filled to the gills with liars and thieves, Daniel figured opportunities presented themselves fairly often.

            He would get what he deserved, one way or another.  There was no end to the list of things the filthy young man thought he deserved.  Money, women, his own ship. 

            If a blowhard Mary such as Jack Sparrow—Daniel called the captain 'Jacqueline' in his own head—could captain a ship, surely it couldn't be terribly hard.  And there had been rumors, he recalled, of a mutiny years ago, of a time when Jack Sparrow had lost his own ship to a man with the right idea, a man who knew who was truly deserving in life.

            Sharpening his aged sword repeatedly, Daniel Carrington watched.  And waited.

            Not far away, slipping through the waters with a recklessness only one crazed would risk, was a small ship, hardly more than a boat, captained by a man who also watched.  By his estimation, he'd waited long enough, what was his had been away from him for far too long.  In a ship Amelia had forgotten stood a man she'd tried hard to forget.

            Blood was thicker than water, as Taletha Hamilton had told her beloved son repeatedly.

            Philip Hamilton thought his sister's blood, and that of the thieving bastard that had taken her, would be a great deal thicker than the waters he navigated.