Ladies and Gentlemen......


I HAVE REACHED 50 REVIEWS!!!


*happy rum dances for about an hour*


I love you! *cries* You people are amazing, creative, wonderful, and you make me feel so loved! *cries some more* Aww.......


Thank you so much!



Then, since you were so good at reaching 50 in just a few days....I don't suppose you could do this for me, could you? *bats eyes* Can we reach....75 review? That's only 25 more, not a whole lot! Really! *puppy eyes* Pretty please?



Erm the Penguin: Aww...thanks. Ditto on that not normally liking it thing - I've read a lot of really bad fics that way, with the exceptions of Andi Horton and Lyssa2, of course! I'm glad you like this one, though!


Elderberry: Yeah, the whole 'keeping some for myself' thing could have been a possibility, had I not decided to use it to placate Jack with! Thanks for putting me on a favs list, too!


Elderberry again: Hey! *hee hee* Now everyone wants to know if she snags the sexah pirate? Mwa ha! Guess you'll just have to keep reading to see!


Bright Eyes: Thanks! Yeah, I wanted to include those two without sacrificing the overall spirit of the movie, so I'm glad that I managed!



Oh - ditto on all previous disclaimers. Despite a not-so-repressed desire to be a pirate, I haven't managed to "commandeer" Pirates of the Caribbean away from Disney yet. Blast.



******



Frankly, I really wasn't all that sure that this was a good idea. Both Jack and Will had a bucket of water in hand, and mischievous grins on their faces. Nearly made me regret telling them that I'd seen a man sleeping with the pigs over in the next street. Jack had immediately wanted to know what the chap looked like, which led to an (apparently) funny pantomime on my part of trying to explain that the man had heavy mutton-chop sideburns. Apparently Jack didn't know what 'mutton-chops' were, so I attempted to explain to him what they looked like. I think he was being stupid on purpose, because soon I was getting rather red in the face and incredibly frustrated; Will was silently laughing, grinning; and Jack just kept giving me these enduringly cute confused looks and asking me to explain it one more time.


When I finally threw up my hands in despair and said "He's just got hair all over his cheeks, alright? Stupid pirate!" Jack burst into laughter.


"Well, why didn't ye just say so in the first place, luv?" he'd chortled. "Would have saved you a lot of trouble."


I smacked him, and stalked off, followed by a laughing Will and a grumbling Jack, muttering, "Not sure I deserved that."


So that was how we wound up back in that other alley, looking down at the peacefully sleeping, rather chunky man and several pigs.


The fact that he was sleeping peacefully changed rather quickly as Jack threw the entire contents of his bucket over the man. A man that woke up, spluttering out curses. "Curse you for breathing, you slack jawed idiot! Mother's love!" his tune changed with a gasp as he recognized his 'attacker'. "Jack! You should know better than to wake a man when he's sleeping! 'S bad luck."


Leaning over to whisper in Will's ear, I hissed, "Just why is he sleeping with pigs, anyway?" Will shrugged.


"Ah, fortunately I know how to counter it." Jack grinned. "The man who did the waking buys the man who was sleeping a drink. The man who was sleeping drinks it, while listening to a proposition from the man who did the waking."


Gibbs stood, smiling a little. "Aye, that'll about do it." He began spluttering again as Will loosed his bucket of water on him. "Blast! I'm already awake!"


"That was for the smell."



***



I shuddered again as we entered the tavern Jack had picked for his 'propositioning'. "This is so dirty," I hissed, trying to ignore the pirate who leered as we walked in. "Isn't there someplace else we could do this?"


Jack grinned, throwing his arm around my shoulder again. "Afraid of a few pirates, luv?"


I shook his arm off. "No." I said coldly. Trust me, I didn't understand it myself. Why was I acting as though I hated Jack? For pete's sake, when I was back home, I had pictures of him up everywhere, and he was on my desktop, and my screen-saver, and...well, it didn't make any sense to me. Maybe I was just trying to assert my independence? That excuse sounded vaguely cop-out-ish in my mind too. "I just thought maybe you could pick a tavern in which someone isn't going to think I'm a....harlot?"


Jack threw back his head, and let out a sharp, barking laugh. "Ah, luv! So that's the problem!" When I only glared at him, he patted me on the head like I was a little girl to be patronized, and nodded to Will. "Well, then. You just stand here with Will here, and keep a sharp eye. The eunuch'll protect you."


Then he and Gibbs slipped into one of the booths, leaving me and a slightly put-out Will behind. "He called me an eunuch again, didn't he?" Will asked, frowning slightly.


"Yeah." I sighed, and leaned against the wall, arms crossed over my chest. I tried desperately to adjust the collar of my dress, wishing it wasn't quite so low. "How come we can't talk with them?" I realized that I sounded like a petulant child, but I think I deserve a mope every now and then.


Will simply watched the people around the tavern, doing his job and keeping a sharp eye. "Perhaps it is not a matter that concerns us."


"Yeah. Right." Letting out a sigh deep enough to ruffle the stray pieces of hair that had, again, fallen out of its bun, I joined Will in looking around the tavern. Who knows, maybe we'd see something interesting.


Well, I wasn't wrong. The inhabitants of the Torgugan bar were pirates, prostitutes, and the occasional bar wench. Will and I stuck out like sore thumbs; Will in that he wore neat clothes, looked clean and wasn't drinking; myself in the fact that I kept trying to pull the collar of my dress up just a little bit higher, and that I wasn't drunkenly throwing myself at everything male in sight.


No, that wasn't true. There was one other woman in the place not throwing herself at everything male, and she didn't appear to be drunk, neither. Short, with shoulder length mousy-brown hair that had been tied back with a faded blue bandana, she was behind the counter, wiping it off with a dirty rag stuck in the belt of her plain, faded green dress. She looked up, brown eyes spotting me looking at her, and nodded curtly. She looked away from me, her eyes passing over Will, and into the booth, passing over Gibbs, about to look away, when her face froze. Trying to figure out where she was looking, I half-turned my head, but the only thing I could figure was that she was looking at Jack, who at that moment, thunked down the large mug he had just taken a swig out of.


He noticed me looking at him, and waved, motioning Will and I over. I poked Will, jerked my head in the pirate captain's direction, and we wove our way through the crowd to sit with them.


Will slid into the seat next to Gibbs, and Jack leapt out of his seat, mock-bowing. "Won't you please be seated, luv?"


I rolled my eyes, but slid onto the bench. Jack sat back down beside me, then waved at the bar. "Oi! Rum!"


A few moments later, the woman I had noticed behind the bar stood beside our table, a tray with four tankards of what I could only assume was ale in one hand. "Well, well." she said, which made Jack look up in surprise. "Jack Sparra'."


"Guinevere, luv!" he beamed, sending a typical charming Jack grin up at her.


Her face hardened, and she emptied the nearest tankard of rum in his face. He coughed, spluttering, more shocked than anything.


Hands on her hips, she snapped, "Never thought ah'd see the slimy likes ah yew after it took yew, wha', 2 days to forget abou' me, eh?" And then she smacked him hard across the face, and stomped away, wiping her hand on the cloth in her belt.


There was a stunned silence for a moment, then Will, Gibbs and I all started laughing as Jack muttered, "I may have deserved that."




************




75 reviews, friends! You know you wanna push that little button there! Go on! Give in to the dark side! Review!