Disclaimer: Jack and other wonders belong to the Mouse. Not mine, no profit, no harm intended, savvy?

Chapter 4: The Captain's Cabin

Captain Jack Sparrow waved his hand vaguely in the direction of one of the chairs by the table as he settled himself into the heavier and presumably more comfortable chair in front of his desk. She was actually somewhat chagrined that he hadn't pulled the chair out for her as any gentleman should have- but whoever said he was a gentleman? Gwen dragged a chair away from the table and turned it to face him before sitting down herself. What she wasn't about to admit, though, certainly not even to herself, was that just moments earlier she had been convinced that he'd invited her- no, demanded her presence in his cabin at intentions that were quite a bit less than perfectly-

A knock on the door disturbed her anxious thoughts. The captain uttered something which very well could have been an intelligible word, to more highly-trained hearing, but sounded simply like a sharp grunt to Gwen's ear. The door swung open in response and in traipsed a particularly tall and willowy man with a grimy kerchief tied about his bald head. He carried a gilt tray in his hands, the finery of it ridiculously at odds with his own unpolished appearance. On the tray was a simple meal, the meager fare of a ship that hadn't been in port in a few weeks: bread, a small uneven block of unhealthy-looking cheese, a wooden bowl of a dark substance she wasn't entirely familiar with, two small and frankly sad-looking apples, salt-cured jerked meat, a pair of ornate goblets, and two glass bottles, one with a label pasted on, one without.

"Captain," the man said with a nod as he set the tray beside his leader on the broad desk-top. The man and the captain exchanged an identical broad grin, the same grin which spoke of sea and self and adventure and freedom. The grin that sent a cold chill straight down Gwen's back and settled a stone in her uneasy stomach. The grin that made her suddenly aware of how alone she was- she had only a few people, indirect relations, left to her in the world, and even those were distant to her here and now.

Gwen jumped when she realized that yet again, her mind had wandered away with her. The pirate who'd served them was gone. She was alone with Sparrow. And he was holding a piece of bread out to her.

"Hungry, luv?" he asked, with the air of one repeating himself. He probably was repeating himself, Gwen knew. She scolded herself; she would have to keep her mind focused the entire time she was in his company. The entire time she was on the pirate ship, for that matter. She needed to be fully aware of everything that happened. From here on, Gwen felt in her bones, she truly was on her own in the world and she would have to take care of herself. Of course, this was ridiculous- with luck, she would soon be united with her new family, her uncle and aunt. But for the time being, then, she reminded herself.

Gwen accepted the bit of food, both because she was, in fact, very hungry, and because she didn't want to show any defiance in his face just now. As far as she knew, a pirate was a pirate. And a pirate, from the tales and stories she'd heard in her life, were scarcely men- they were rogues with little humanity and no conscience at all. Which meant that she was supposed to be entirely at the mercy of this renegade. Best to play along in the game.

Jack eyed the girl. Flighty little thing. He watched her nibble at the bread he'd given her and shook his head in amusement. He had hoped he'd be able to get some story or other entertainment out of her, but he was beginning to grow bored with the caged-animal appearance. He preferred women with a bit more spirit to them. Truth be told, he preferred even his men (his crew, that is) to be spirited souls. There was no room for dull people around the colorful Captain Jack Sparrow.

Jack ripped off another chunk of the rather dry and stale bread and picked up the bowl of molasses. He peered into as though looking into an abyss for the secret to the meaning of life- and then abruptly dunked his bread into it. "Tell me about yerself, lass," he urged, before taking a bite from his molasses-sopped bread.

"What do you want to know?" the girl asked. Jack was pleased to see a steeled look flash in her brown eyes. So the timid little rabbit was preparing herself to face the wolf? Perhaps this would be fun, after all.

"What's a lass like you doing sailing all by yer onesies from England to Port Royal?" Jack clarified, gesturing with his bread and sending drops of molasses slinging to the floor. His kohl-limned eyes flicked downward to briefly study one of the dark drops where it fell on his expensive-looking rug, then slid back to the girl's face. He saw her staring at the new stains herself, and he quickly popped the rest of the messy morsel into his mouth before it dripped more.

"How did you know I was sailing from England?"

Jack nearly choked with laughter at the silly question as he reached for the two goblets. "Well, ye certainly aren't going to tell me ye were sailing from Africa... or the colonies? There's the bearing of the ship, o' course. And ye were sailing under one o' those," he said, nodding toward the wall that the door was set in.

Jack watched as the girl turned to regard the shelf beside the doorway. The particular item that he indicated to her, a folded Union Jack, rested atop a stack of various flags and banners. Gwen recognized the colors of France, Spain, and Portugal as well she couldn't immediately name before she turned back to Jack. But he wasn't looking at her. His attention had been captured by something else.

Jack studied the labeled bottle for a moment. He gave a noncommittal sort of sound, and poured from the bottle into one of the goblets. He paused momentarily to reminisce on the coup that had earned him this particular goblet, which made him tip his head back and chuckle. Then he turned to Gwen, handing her the other goblet and filling it partially from the bottle.

"To the conquest of the Brindle Merrimac," he toasted and raised the goblet to his lips.

"No!" he said, halting abruptly and reaching out to stop Gwen from drinking the toast either. He peered at the goblet again. "I think these are just from that chap in Tortuga." Narrowing his eyes at it for a moment, he shrugged, releasing her wrist, and downed his drink with a wrinkled nose and crossed eyes.

He noticed the girl pausing to consider hers.

"Don't like brandy?" he asked. "Well, if you won't drink it, kind mistress," he said, something of a sarcastic leer to his voice, "I don't know of anyone on this ship who will."

He reached to take the goblet from her, but Gwen clutched it closer to herself and flinched away. She took a tentative sip of it, then swallowed the rest of it in a single draw. She gasped as it burned its way down her throat. If she had been able to stop and look at him, she would have noticed Jack beaming at her. If one had asked why she drank it, she might have made up an answer. She might have said she was trying to win over the pirate, for her safety's sake. But the real answer probably had more to do with the sense that she was outside of judgmental eyes for the first time ever, and she was curious to try the drink without fear of being admonished by society.

Rash. Jack liked that. Something about her screamed naivete, but she had still rashly gulped down that brandy as though it were something she always did. Of course, by the way she reacted, she quite obviously wasn't much of a drinker at all.

Jack snatched up an apple and bit into it, trying to banish the unwelcome taste of the brandy. Tossing another at Gwen (and surprised both to see that she was paying enough attention to see it coming and that she caught it), he moved toward the window over the table. Leaning over the table and swinging the glass open, Jack chucked the bottle of brandy out and listened for the faint but satisfying splash as it fell into the sea. He turned back to catch a glimpse of the girl looking at her apple with a look of some distaste, but she quickly schooled her features into the same half-startled, half-conquered face she'd worn most of the time he looked at her so far. The apples were more than a bit mealy, even he would admit, but he found it even more amusing that she was trying pretend that she was scared enough of him to pretend that the apple was delicious. Jack shook his head a bit, trying to rationalize the rationalization he'd just made, then gave up and lurched back a step or two toward his desk in his perpetual drunken sway.

Picking up the other bottle, full of his cherished rum, Jack settled himself back into his chair. He held the rum out to her in offering, but she politely declined. He was amused, of course, knowing she would most certainly refuse any drink after the brandy, but also relieved that he wouldn't have to share after offering. He upended the bottle of rum, swallowing a huge mouthful of the blessed stuff. Reaching for more bread, he gestured vaguely at her.

"Yer tale, me lass," he prodded. He pulled a drawer of his desk out so he could prop his feet up on it and settled back in his chair, clearly readying himself for a story-telling.

Gwen took another bite of the mealy apple, trying to decide how much she should tell him. She couldn't quite figure out if she was supposed to entertain him or provide him with practical information as to how much ransom he could demand from her Port Royal relatives.

"There's not much to tell," Gwen said, quite frankly, stalling as she tried to decide where to start.

Captain Sparrow said nothing. He took another swig of rum.

Gwen heard a faint sound of metal hitting metal and noticed that he had slipped a ring from one of his hands and was idly weaving the piece of jewelry in and out between the other rings on his fingers. When she looked up again, she found that his eyes were still locked on hers. He smacked his lips and upturned his rum bottle again, still maintaining his expectant stare with one eye.

"Well," Gwen began hesitantly. There really wasn't all that much to tell. "My parents are both dead," she tried.

The captain's face remained expressionless.

"My mother died in childbirth with my brother; neither survived. My father died nearly five months ago now. An aunt- my father's sister, who is a widow herself- saw me off on board the Graymere, where you found me."

Sparrow smiled. Gwen assumed that had to do with her slight alteration of the tale- he knew quite well, of course, that in fact, she had found him. If it could even be called "finding." And that on board the Pearl, regardless.

"I was traveling to Port Royal to take up residence with my only other living relations, my father's brother and his wife and three children," she added, then fell silent.

"How did your 'father' die?" he asked after a short space, mimicking the accent and tone in the way she had said "father."

Gwen was a little surprised at this question. Jack was simply trying to pry a more entertaining story from her- he was hoping for a gory intrigue culminating in a fight to the death. Or perhaps a terrific accident. If Gwen had known that, she might have better understood why he looked somewhat disappointed when she replied simply, "The doctor said it was his heart."

Trying to prod entertainment from a different source, he asked, "That aunt- the widow- why did she send you all the way from England to the Caribbean?" He held out his hands far apart, one as he said "England," the other, with his rum, at "Caribbean."

"Where there are scalawags like me to steal young maidens from their floating palaces in the dead of night," he added with a gold-edged grin and a long pull from his "Caribbean" rum.

Gwen saw that he was playing her own game with her. She chose to neatly sidestep and deny the little detail that it was her own fault she was on a pirate ship- he chose to dance around it and mock her.

But then she found herself distractedly wondering if most of the pirate tales she had heard- which admittedly weren't many and were mostly from the crew of the Graymere- were yarns spun of the same sort of half-truths as the twist of facts he'd just concocted so easily. That the pirate-captain was a scallywag, well- she could easily grant him that. And she herself was indeed a young maiden. But beyond that... It had been bright morning when the Graymere, hardly a floating palace even with a bit of imagination, had been raided by the pirate crew. And if he had indeed "stolen" her, if that was the appropriate word to use, then all of the booty his crew had "stolen" had really hopped onto his deck on its own as well. He was scarcely the ogre-like monster that polite society's tales painted of all lawless souls.

"Well, why don't you tell me a tale then, if mine don't satisfy you?" Gwen asked after a moment, truly hoping to hear an adventure tale from the buccaneer before her. In the next second, though, she wished to draw her rash words back when he narrow his eyes at her. She almost expected a blow or at least an angry outburst- but his response was mild.

"You're avoiding me question again, luv," he said, not noticing the small sigh of relief she uttered at his calm words as he emptied his rum bottle. "Why'd Aunt England send an innocent like you across the ocean on yer onesies? She the one who bought you those togs?"

As he spoke, he dropped his feet to the floor and crossed his room to rummage under his bed. Producing another bottle of his favorite spirits, he flipped his hat onto his desk beside the food tray and flopped on his back onto his bed. He settled his head comfortably on one arm against his pillow, uncorked his new rum bottle with his teeth and was about to take a drink when he noticed Gwen's continued silence. He raised his head to look at her. She was giving him an incredulous look.

"How did you know my aunt bought this dress?" she asked at length.

Jack grinned and took a swig of rum. "I didn't know, luv," he confessed cheekily. "Jes' figured women pick out gowns together, so yer aunt has more to do with it than yer sire. Auntie pay, or did Papa leave 'is dear girl an inheritance?"

Gwen's face flushed.

"I was not his 'dear girl,'" she insisted more vehemently than she'd intended, unhappy about being forced to admit what she had always simply accepted- she was merely her father's offspring, not his beloved daughter.

"So that's a 'no'?" Jack asked, hiding his smirk behind his rum bottle.

"That's none of your business," Gwen replied firmly.

Jack seriously doubted that she had any gold of her own hidden within her skirts somewhere (in which case he would certainly make it his business), so he didn't press the matter.

Neither of them spoke for several long moments, Gwen shifting uneasily, Jack perfectly at ease with the situation. Finally, realizing that her earlier request hadn't been denied, merely stepped around, Gwen nudged, "So tell me of your adventures stealing young maidens from floating palaces."

Jack took several seconds to respond, saturating his tongue with rum, presumably to make his yarn-weaving smoother. (His words were by now slurring quite noticeably- more than his usual unique drawl, that is.)

"I've got no interest in kidnapping ladies," he said pointedly after a space. "They bloody ruin everything. Besides, I've got no use for women as aren't perfectly willing, if ye catch me drift."

He glanced over at her, purposefully letting his gaze slide down her figure.

"Sorry," he apologized insincerely. "I forgot me present company- virgin ears." He waved his hand in a vague gesture up and down to indicate her body. "And all that." He grinned impishly at her blush and drank of his rum again.

"Proper ladies tend to get ideas about me rum," Jack went on, gesturing in bewildering patterns with his free hand. "Ideas like throwing it into a bonfire to signal redcoats after me." He shuddered at the memory.

"Don't you get any ideas, luv," he warned in a low voice, pointing his bottle vaguely in her direction.

"If kidnapping doesn't appeal to you, then why are you holding me here?" Gwen asked.

"I'm not holding ye at all, luv- you're sadly on the wrong side of the room."

Gwen fought the color she knew was rising in her cheeks. "You know very well what I meant!" she exclaimed, exasperated.

"Ye should thank me, luv, for not throwing you off to sink to the bottom of Davy Jones' Locker, as being the only other option," Jack answered matter-of-factly, though his serious thought lost something in the translation through his rum-drenched tongue.

Assuming he was referring to the ocean itself as somebody's "locker," Gwen had to confess to herself that she hadn't really though about that. She couldn't very well have been simply returned to her own rapidly-fleeing ship. What else was there to be done? At least Captain Sparrow had promised- for whatever his promises were worth- to see her safely to her uncle's household.

"I'm not a kidnapper of bonnie lasses," Jack reiterated, then paused, remembering a spirited piratess he'd had "business dealings" with several years earlier. "-Of innocent young ladies," he amended, "but I never said I wasn't an opportunist. S'long as somebody will pay to have ye back, ye're an opportunity. Didn't we already talk about this, luv?"

Gwen almost permitted herself to smile at the selfish logic in his answer, but held her countenance blank. She didn't mention that she sincerely hoped, for both their sakes, that her uncle would indeed be willing to pay her ransom. She pretended to idly study the half-eaten apple she still held in one hand, waiting for him to break the silence next.

He finally did- with a light, snuffling snore.

"Captain?" Gwen called uncertainly after a minute or two. She stood carefully, setting her apple down on the tray. Gwen crossed the room and looked down at him. With the kohl rimming his devilish eyes and the smirk he still wore, the pirate didn't even look innocent in sleep. Beguiling was more the word.

"Captain Sparrow!" she tried again, more forcefully. She dared to poke his arm when he still didn't respond. Nothing.

With a heavy sigh, and quite unsure what she, the captive, was supposed to do when her captor fell asleep, she stood over him awkwardly for a moment. Common sense, she thought, to take the rum from him lest he spill what was left. But she couldn't pry his fingers loose from the bottle.

At a loss, Gwen let her arms fall to her sides again. She glanced around the room anxiously and then back at the sleeping captain. In spite of his repeated reassurances that he just wanted a ransom and wouldn't hurt her, she was no dunce. She wasn't going to trust someone so dangerous just because he asked her to. As she slid her gaze unconsciously down his body, her attention was drawn by the weapons still at his sides. Did she dare...?

On an impulse, Gwen seized one of his pistols where it was still tucked into his sash. She jumped- half in guilt, half in surprise- when his hand just as quickly clamped around her wrist with a crushing grip. She slowly turned frightened eyes to meet his and accept whatever punishment he saw fit to bestow on her brashness- but his eyes were still closed in sleep! Gwen wrenched her arm from his grasp, studying his face all the while. Nothing.

Gwen was doubly relieved. Relieved that she hadn't really been caught in the act- it was apparently just some paranoid reflex of his. And relieved that she hadn't succeeded. What exactly had she intended to do with the gun anyway? Shoot the man who was probably her only chance of still making it safely into Port Royal? She knew she wasn't capable of killing anyone anyway. Even if she could use the threat of the weapon to somehow aid her in escaping from all of the pirates on the ship, there was nowhere to escape to except the waves, another fact she'd just set down to herself. One of these days, her presumptuous, thoughtless actions were going to get her killed. Wasn't that what her aunt had told her countless times in the months she'd spent with her?

Gwen rapidly reviewed her current situation, forcing herself to think carefully before doing anything else. The captain was deeply asleep. She couldn't wake him. And she wasn't about to spend the whole night in a man's cabin, no matter what innocent truths she could claim or whether the scruffy crew of the Pearl cared one way or the other about propriety. She turned and walked to the door. Opening it didn't seem to cause any reaction in the slumbering captain, so she simply slipped out, gently pulling the door closed behind her.