He'd have been amused, had he not been so worried about the state of his ship.  She'd come ashore and hadn't even realized what it meant—that she'd worked off her end of the bargain, and that she'd gained the passage she'd so desperately begged for.

            "Well, that's just positively uplifting," he exclaimed as they neared the ship.  "Look alive, love, it looks as though we've visitors aboard the Pearl."

            She'd been thinking of other things, of a morning spent in his arms, of seeing a man try to kill him, of her own persistent idiocy.  Most of all, she thought of how she'd come aboard the Pearl in an attempt to escape, and now she had no place else she truly wanted to be.

            At Jack's words, she looked up and saw the small craft bobbing next to the Pearl.  The single word flew from her mouth without thought, without intent.

            "Da!"  She scrambled to her feet, making both the boat and her stomach lurch.

            "I beg your pardon?"  Jack steadied the boat and grasped a hand to her shoulder, none too gentle.  He had a sudden, clear picture of a very large and very angry man coming to avenge his daughter's virtue.  "I thought you said your father was dead."  He couldn't keep the hopeful note from his voice.

            Amelia shook her head, rubbing her hand over her face.  Her skin had dropped to an ashen tone, her eyes wide and suddenly unfathomable.  "He is," she said hollowly.  "That ship—it's the Larksong.  'Twas my father's, and I—"  I had forgotten all about it, she finished in her mind.  "Philip's followed us."

            Jack looked critically at the ship—it was nearly too small to be called such.  "If what yer tellin' me, love, is that the huge, ungainly, and horrible-smelling man I had the ill-fortune to encounter just before we left has followed us, I have to admit I will not be charmed or pleased or happy in any general sort of way."

            "Yes," she said woodenly.  "That's precisely what I'm telling you, Jack."

            They were alongside the Pearl in a matter of strokes, Jack already keeping himself between Amelia and the ship.  "Stay here," he said, though he knew the odds of her actually obeying him were slim.  The last time he'd told someone to stay put, he'd been coshed in the back of the head with an oar. 

            He started to climb up, stopped by a small hand wrapped in the cloth of his pants. 

            "'Tis my fault," Amelia said, her eyes large and earnest.  "I'll not stay here and leave you to deal with something I've brought upon you."

            He stared at her for long moments, not saying anything, studying her intently.  "You didn't bring him upon yourself; he did that, love, and you'd do well to remember it.  It was my decision to keep you aboard, and my decision to keep you abed."  He turned his back to her, rolling his eyes heavenward.  "But if you're coming, come quietly."

~~~

            "Yoo… hoo…"  Philip took one shaky step after another, covering foot by foot of the deck, turning his large head this way and that to try and catch a glimpse of his sister.  "Come on, Amelia, y'aren't any catch at hiding games, y'know."  He giggled madly, clutching his hand to his chest. 

            His hand had gotten progressively worse.  He'd had to pay a boy to help him ready the small, rotting craft his father had left behind, but he'd gotten his money back easily enough.  It had hardly been a challenge, a small lad like that. 

            After one day out to sea, red streaks had begun to crawl up his arm, a deep-seated itching crawling up and down his arm.  Lubricating the arm—and his throat—with liberal amounts of gin seemed to keep it quiet.

            But then the fever had set, making a man who was already teetering completely mad.  The vague idea he'd started out with that Amelia was technically his possession careened into full-blown obsession, and he became increasingly sure that she was selling her body and keeping the profits—his by right—for herself.

            So he crept along the ship, not bothering to keep an ear out for other people, his mind intent on Amelia and the bastard conveyancer who'd taken her. 

~~~

            The men were just breaking from their meal when Jack landed feet back on the boards of his ship.  Gibbs came up first, his flask already halfway to his mouth when Jack grasped his arm.  "Do me a bit of a favor, Gibbs, cast your eyes to the north there and tell me what, exactly, you see." 

            Gibbs's hand quivered on his flask as he did as he was asked.  "Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," he moaned.  "No one called up, Cap'n, no one raised a shout 'tall!"

            Amelia stepped forward, shouldering Jack out of the way and making Gibbs raise his eyebrows.  "Who was on watch tonight, Master Gibbs?"  As the man scratched his chin and tried to think, Amelia gathered her skirts and looked at Jack pleadingly.  "'Twas Anamaria," she said, already off on a run, lurching across the ever-moving ship.

            "Search the ship, Gibbs, yer lookin' for a man who's more bulk than brains, savvy?"  Raising his eyebrow, he nodded at Gibbs's flask.  "He likely smells of alcohol.  Surely you can scent that easily enough."  Dropping his books on the deck and knowing no one would disturb them, Jack followed her, more suited to the rolling motion of the ship and reaching the fallen crewwoman's side before Amelia did.

            "Damnation," Amelia grated out as she stumbled to a halt.  Snatching the tricorne from Jack's head, she began to fan Anamaria with it, completely missing the gape Jack was giving her.

            The bloody shrew had taken his hat.  His hat, of all things.  Scowling and keeping a ready ear out for anyone approaching, Jack whipped the cloth from his hair and rolled it into a loose whip of sorts.  Feeling a sense of symmetry at the situation, he slapped Anamaria in the face with it.

            "Jack!" Amelia stopped fanning and stared disbelievingly.

            "Save the sermon for another time, love, I've a question or two for the lass here."  He was preparing to use the bandana again when Anamaria's eyes snapped open.

            "Ye hit me with that thing, you mangy dog, and it'll be the last thing ye do," she said, wincing as she raised a hand to her head.  "'Tis more times than necessary I've been hit today."

            "Who did it?" Jack said, suddenly curt. 

            Anamaria sat up, shaking her head.  "Didn't see," she responded, raising her eyes to Amelia's.  "But I see ye found 'im," she addressed the woman, nodding.  "Good."

            Jack stood and strode away, his gun already weighting one hand and his other hand playing on the hilt of his sword. 

            His men swarmed around him, searching each of the ship's three decks, looking around every corner and in every space.  Jack walked slowly, his eyes catching every detail, noting the placement of everything on the ship.  It would have been one thing had it only been an intruder, but the idea of this particular man—the one who had driven Amelia to such lengths in the first place—made the idea of a hunt particularly satisfying.  The door to his cabin, cracked slightly, caught his eye, and a predatory grin spread over his lips.

            "Someone's done something stupid," he sing-songed under his breath, and swung the door open wide.