Chapter One:

Drinking Games

On the best of days (or nights) Tortuga was rife with all sorts of madness, be it from alcohol or otherwise. This night was no different, indeed it seemed slightly more so. Several ships were currently docked there, all of them of unsavory origins and uncertain goals. Some might see the town as a dangerous, frightening place- most of those who sought it out saw the place as an enormous playground of opportunity.

Whatever Tortuga represented to others, at that moment it represented, to Gibbs, a good pint of ale and some mild entertainment in the form of barroom brawling.

Of course, after about ten minutes the brawl stopped, mostly because the cook had waded into the fray and knocked everyone involved unconscious with a cast-iron frying pan, and the common room of the inn reached something approaching peace.

Gibbs swirled his ale in his tankard, wondering if he wanted to drink the remainder and have another or sip it a bit longer. He knew perfectly well that he could drink himself into another pigpen if he wanted, and thus tempered himself slightly.

Someone sat on the stool to his right. Gibbs looked up perfunctorily, identified the small, tousle-haired woman in men's clothes as no one he knew, as returned his gaze to the miniature whirlpool in his mug.

"Fascinatin', isn't it?" asked the woman, smirking at the blank expression on Gibbs' face.

"Oh, aye," said Gibbs sarcastically. "More so than lots o' things, ale is."

The woman shook her head slightly and turned her attention to the barkeep. She thumped the bar slightly to catch his eye. "Whiskey," she said firmly. "Give us the bottle."

Gibbs chuckled slightly as the woman took a full bottle of whiskey from the barkeep, eschewing the shot glass she was offered. "Bit strong for a woman o' your size, ain't it?"

The woman cast Gibbs an amused glance. "Hardly." She opened the bottle and tasted it, then gaze Gibbs an appraising look. "I could drink you under the table, old man."

"Could ye now?" Gibbs said neutrally.

"More certainly than any jack tar here," she replied confidently. She used piratical slang, but the accent was strange. Her words were crisp and clear, and her accent was such that she could have been from absolutely anywhere. Gibbs wasn't much inclined to ruminating on people's origins, but he thought she might have originally been from America.

The little exchange had gotten some attention from those seated nearest the pair. A gruff-looking man with overgrown sideburns said, "I'd put five shillings on the old man 'ere, iffin you do get to it," he said, exposing several missing teeth in a raucous grin.

Several other men took up the challenge. Most of them sided with Gibbs. He tilted his head and smirked.

"What d' ye say to that?"

"Load o' tosh," she said, snorting derisively. Her eyes lit up with mischief. "I thought they'd have more than five shillings worth o' faith in ye."

"So'd I," Gibbs replied amiably, tossing a friendly glare at the betting men now clustered up around them.

"So is it a bet? First one under pays the tab," the woman said, a teasing grin on her face. She tapped the side of the whiskey bottle in her hand. "We can start with this, if the barkeep'll be kind enough to give us the loan of two shot glasses."

"So it is," said Gibbs. He finished his ale and stood.

A table was quickly emptied of patrons and the two combatants sat across from each other, with the bottle and two slightly sticky shot glasses between them. One of the barmaids was volunteered to pour the shots to ensure equal amounts of liquor between the two.

It was an interesting scene- a grizzled, middle-aged, salty old pirate facing off against a small, slender woman who couldn't have been older than twenty-seven, although her sun-blasted face may have been lying- she might well have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty.

By the time the bottle was empty, the woman was grinning widely and Gibbs' eyes were starting to cross. Another bottle was called for and by the end of that one both combatants were swaying slightly in their seats.

The quiet battle ended halfway through the third bottle. Glowering at each other and in slightly different states of drunk, they raised their now considerably sticker glasses and knocked back the contents. They placed the shot glasses back on the table and glared at each other.

Expression not changing a bit, Gibbs slid sideways off his chair and collapsed in a heap on the dirty floor.

The woman let out a peal of gleeful laughter as a good deal of money changed hands. She stood up, wobbling a bit, and gave Gibbs a half-hearted kick in the shins. "Make sure he pays up," she said to the barmaid in slurred tones. "I sure ain't." Casting a pleased look at the scene, she slipped away.

Only one person noticed that, as she went, she liberated several money purses from their previous owners. He smirked to himself.

* * *

"Back for more, I see. I thought last night's meeting made a wiser man o' ye."

Gibbs looked up and growled slightly. "Ye made a fool o me, right enough" he said. "And that tab weren't no pretty sight neither, lass."

The woman shrugged. "Not my problem." She grinned slightly. "Still fighting off a hangover, are we?"

"Shove off, ye scurvy wench," Gibbs grumbled. The woman laughed merrily. "Scurvy indeed!"

Gibbs said nothing for a moment, while the woman flagged down the barkeep for a glass of rum. After she had swallowed almost half of it he spoke again, having had time to get his brain cells to agree on a proper vocalization.

"What's your name, lass?"

"Ain't none o' yur business, mate, but I'm feelin' generous," she said, a teasing smile creeping up her tan face. "Sofia Briggs. And you?"

"Gibbs."

"What be your Christian name?"

"Ain't none o' yur business," Gibbs replied, but without much rancor. Sofia grinned slightly.

"Touché, then."

"I must say, I'm impressed. Such a little thing, holdin' all that liquor."

"Cap'n," said Gibbs neutrally. Sofia raised her eyebrows slightly. Jack Sparrow ignored her expression and sat heavily on the stool to her left, between Sofia and Gibbs.

"Saw me flatten 'im last night, did ye?" Sofia asked, her almost permanent grin slipping back onto her face. "Good way to get a free drink, in my mind."

"That it is," said Jack. "You certainly earned it, lass, goin' against my rum-soaked first mate and comin' out the victor." He grinned slightly. "I din' appreciate having to haul the old dog back to the ship, though."

Gibbs spluttered in protest; Sofia laughed gaily. Her base state of being, in fact, seemed to be amusement. "Not that it did ye much good- he's right back where he started, ain't he?"

"Dif'rent stool," Gibbs grunted.

"Same inn, same tankard, and same ale," Sofia replied blithely. "I dinnae think you'll be havin' the same bit o' whiskey, though." She grinned impishly, dark eyes dancing in the smoky half-light. "Think I cured him o' that particular vice. What be yur name, by the by?" she added, addressing Jack. Jack grinned roguishly and swept off his hat.

"Captain Jack Sparrow, of the Black Pearl. I didn't catch your name, lass."

"Ya dinnae ask me," she replied, "but it'd be Sofia Briggs."

Jack stuck his hat firmly atop the tangled mass that was his hair. "That's interesting," he mused. "Sounds familiar. You wouldn't be a relation o' Benjamin Briggs, would ye now?"

Sofia's expression shuttered disturbingly fast. "Aye. My father. What's it to you, Cap'n Jack?"

Jack shrugged and swiped Sofia's rum, polishing off the remains of it. "Not much. Heard of him."

"Everyone's heard o' Benjamin Briggs," said Gibbs, insinuating himself back into the conversation. "Disappeared off the decks o' the Mary Celeste, nigh on twenty years ago. Ain't that so, lass?"

"It is," said Sofia, relaxing slightly. "Along with the crew- probably jumped overboard on a whim," she said bitterly.

"I heard his family went with 'im," said Jack. "Ain't that interesting, though? Seein' as you're alive and all."

"Ain't none o' yur business, ye addlepated tars, but I went on a wee bit of a trip with me mum and never went aboard again," Sofia snapped. "When yur own father starts shouting about rains o' frogs and imagined infidelities betwixt yur mum and the mainmast, you'd scurry too."

"Aye, I would." Jack shrugged slightly and glanced about the room. "Your father was a respectable man, what are you doin' in Tortuga liftin' pocket change then, love?"

Sofia smirked and shrugged. "Bermuda got borin'." She dumped a few coins on the counter for the barkeep and left.

* * *

Sofia wandered aimlessly through Tortuga's dirty streets, sidestepping drunks and brawlers without thinking. She didn't know why she was all antsy- she'd faced the Spanish Inquisition about her origins before. It was just that the captain had a knowing look about him, as if he knew more about her reasons for being in Tortuga than even she herself did. It made her skin crawl.

"Lost, lad?" bellowed a voice heavily modulated by alcohol. "Forget where yur mum went?" A heavy hand landed on Sofia's narrow shoulder. She stopped dead in her tracks. She recognized the voice, even if the speaker didn't recognize her.

"I'm no more a lad than yur an English lord," Sofia snarled. She shrugged off the hand and started walking again, but her arm was seized and she was pulled around harshly.

"Why, it's our dear Sofia," the man leered, exposing rotten teeth and sending forth a gust of foul breath. "Ain't that a grand thing."

"Ain't is right," Sofia retorted, jerking her arm from his grip. "What d'ye want, Jordan?"

Jordan smirked. His eyes were slightly unfocused. "Ye've an outstandin' debt to me, lass," he said smugly. "A good deal o' swag swiped off my ship- I'd take great pleasure in takin' it outta yur hide." His eyes darkened.

"Shove off," Sofia snapped. "I ain't under yur thumb no more, nor yur scurvy captain and that lot o' simpletons ye call a crew. If you reckon you can take me, drunk as ye, then I reckon I just might have to kill ye fur good this time."

Jordan blinked, trying to digest Sofia's speech, then smirked again. "What'd ye say 'bout me crew, lass?"

Five shadows detached themselves from the greater darkness, resolving into several crewmen from the Blackbird. Sofia's slim fingers clutched the short cutlass in her waistband almost convulsively. Spying the movements, three of the men drew their own. Jordan produced a flintlock pistol from somewhere in depths of the rags he called clothing.

"Oh, I think not," he said.

They were a pack of drunken idiots. Sofia looked at the half-circle forming around her, and then she did something very odd.

She threw back her head and laughed.

Jordan frowned. "'Ere now-"

Still laughing, Sofia turned around and bolted. She vanished into the darkness like a ghost long before Jordan could even think of aiming his pistol.

"Follow her!" Jordan bellowed, infuriated. Like the obedient—and stupid—dogs they were the other men surged after Sofia like so many bloodhounds chasing a recalcitrant fox.

Sofia darted through the shadows. She drew her cutlass, both to keep it from banging on her leg and in case she should need to use it. She blazed past taverns and brothels, pirates and merchants, all too engrossed in their own lives to notice.

The swarm of trailing pirates did attract attention, however, in the form of jeers and laughter. A few were so drunk they could barely walk, never mind run, and none of them were in any condition for an adrenaline-pumped chase.

So after about five minutes, most have dropped out of the running and retreated to the closest tavern. Jordan and Kramer, third mate of the Blackbird, kept going.

Sofia could hear them gaining on her. Her back prickled, and she ducked into an alley. Jordan's shot missed.

"Ye whore-spawn, I'll kill ye yet!" Jordan roared.

Sofia smacked into a wall. She'd gone, in true Murphy's Law fashion, into a dead end. She whirled, cutlass before her, to see Jordan and Kramer at the head of the alley, blocking the faint light.

"Here we are," said Jordan, leering once again. "Come now, miss, drop that ruddy cutlass o' yurn and let's have a bit of a chat."

"I'd sooner trust a serpent than you, Jeremiah Jordan," Sofia spat.

"Ye trusted me enough to join me crew," Jordan retorted. "I was so trustworthy, in fact, that ye walked away with more swag than I'd care to count."

"That was years ago, ye old dog," Sofia spat. "And no more'n yur due."

Jordan fired another shot. It ricocheted off the bricks to Sofia's left. She flinched, but did not stand down.

"I lost me standin' and I've got a bloody Frenchman captainin' me own ship now!" Jordan bellowed. "Don' give me tha' mess!"

Sofia rolled her eyes. "Yur borin'." And so she lunged forward. Kramer swiped at her with his cutlass, getting a gash and a punch to the jaw for his trouble. Jordan fired wildly, all four remaining shots hitting naught but air and brick.

Kramer scrambled away, too drunk to do anything more. Sofia whirled on Jordan. He threw his pistol at her and drew his own sword.

"I'll kill ye yet," Jordan said again, teeth gritted. Sofia shook her head.

"You just don't know when to give up, do ye?" Once again, Sofia turned and ran. Even drunk, Jordan was not a man to cross blades with.

Particularly when Jordan had taught Sofia the craft to begin with.

* * *

The docks were, in a startling contrast to the rest of the city, deathly silent and still. Wood creaked and waves lapped, but otherwise it was quiet.

Sofia stumbled along the dock, dragging her cutlass. The sun was just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon- the boats leaving this morning would be doing so within the next two hours. She had to hurry, but her legs were cramped- she'd spent the past four hours alternating pell-mell sprints with bone-weary slogging. Normally she would have stopped long before, but her own deeply seated paranoia kept her moving, eventually leading her down to the docks.

Her eyes were blurred from exhaustion and the half a bottle of whiskey she'd swiped from an unconscious drunk. Even if she had been able to read, she never would have been able to make out the names painted on the sides of the ships anyway.

She clambered up a random gangplank, stumbled as she set foot on the deck, and five steps later fell full-length on the boards with a bone-shuddering crash.