A/N: I am so, so sorry that this chapter took so long. My inspiration wandered randomly for a very long time -- but this is getting started up again. Hopefully, with no more pauses. Thanks for waiting. wink

Jack Sparrow had never been the brightest man. Clever, yes. Conniving, yes. Stylish, occasionally -- but he had never really seen a use for brains, other than keeping him alive. He had always thought that if brains were smaller, there could be room in one's head for things that were more... better. Like a psychic telephone or flamethrowers for Heat-Vision.

This, of course, is one of the many reasons why he got himself into trouble so often.

It had never been a problem before. Up until he had married Little Miss Priggy-pants, he had always been able to talk his way out of trouble. But, as in most cases, she changed him a bit. When Lizzie was angry, it was now his place to be frightened.

"You're an idiot," she said, throwing the golf club to the ground in annoyance. "You prance about, pretending nothing's the matter when all the time you're pirating?! In America?!"

Oh. That's what it's about... he thought, biting the inside of his cheek. Piracy. Yes, it was just like her to know that he'd killed people, burgled, thrown eggs at cars and whatnot without a single care or inhibition. But when she finds out about his bloody commandeering, she blew up. Just like Lizzie -- little prat that she was.

"What about it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's just stealing. No need to make it a big todo, dearest."

That was, apparently, not the right thing to say. Jack deduced this from the fact that his wife tried to smile, placing a pale hand on his shoulder with her nails digging through his shirt. It hurt... a lot, but this was a game of endurance and he was not about to surrender.

"Jack, darling," Lizzie said, still grinning evilly. "While it may have been 'just stealing' in England, it's very different here. I'm sure that you don't pay the slightest attention to international affairs, but I do. Currently, piracy is a very big issue in America."

Oh. "...It is?"

"Yes, they have commercials with that fellow who played Sam in Lord of the Rings -- and did you know that they can track computers in America?"

Damn. "...You're fibbing."

"How much do you want to bet that the police are here within two weeks?"

The man who had been thrown in the jail cell next to Will gave a slight cough at his question, and raised a twitchy eyebrow.

"Well..." Will said promptingly. "Come on, if you can I'm not going to... hit you or anything. Not like I could, anyway, as we're caged and all..."

The man coughed again.

This is not proving to be very productive, the somewhat lonely secretary thought to himself with a sigh. If he was incapable of speaking English, he could at least say so in his native language. I'd get the gist of things. He stared at the corner of James' cell morosely, suddenly finding his hope extinguished.

"...Hey, look, don't be offended -- I was trying to get a hang of the situation."

Will looked up, and found the stranger looking at him, cheek twitching.

"You're American," Will said happily. "Do you have any idea how wonderful this is?!" The man just gave him another twitch. "Er... what's your name?"

"Barrett Garrett."

"...Really?"

"My mom liked rhymes."

"Oh..." Will said, feeling slightly bemused. "Well, er, I'm Will Turner -- the fellow sleeping over there is James Norrington... He's my boss."

"Mafia?" Barrett Garrett asked, with a small snicker. "I didn't know the Brits had organized crime."

"Er... Actually, James and I were on the police force in London. Unfortunately things got a bit... weeeellll... I suppose the only term for it is 'out of hand.' "

Barrett laughed and paced around his cell for a moment, eyes darting around sneakily. "You weren't the guys on the Elizabeth Swann case, were ya?"

"Er..." Yes. Will thought. Yes... Yes, we were.

"Right," the unsettling, twitchy expression on Barrett's face was giving Will a disturbed feeling. "Bet you'd do anything to get outta this place and rescue that chick."

"Well... not exactly anything..."

"But you'd do a lot, right?" Eyes probed into the deepest recesses of Will's thoughts, which gave him a bit of a headache.

"Well... Yes."

"And your boss, right? Bet he feels like a loser."

As pleasant as this conversation was, a certain British young man was having trouble adjusting to the tone of Mr. Garrett's observations. Quite frankly, Will did not wish to talk about their failure to assist Elizabeth Swann. He did not want to talk about how much of an idiot he felt, about how badly he wished he could kill Jack Sparrow with his own bare hands. So he said:

"Well, I think that's enough about me, Mr. Garrett -- it's not particularly fair to ask me all these questions when you are volunteering no information about yourself... How did you end up in this... place?"

"Blew a place up," he said, smiling and twitching. "but, you wouldn't have heard about that... Anyway, Billy --"

"Will... You blew a place up? With people inside?!"

"Billy... This building's kinda old. Okay, really old, and I happen to know that our cells -- mine, yours, and Jamie's over there -- are all snuggled right next to the outside wall. If we got some kinda object, we could chip away at this mortar and be out of here before you'd have time to say 'Stanislavski'. Whaddaya say?"

Suddenly, Will Turner began to feel very sick. If he said yes to this mass-murderer -- he was in the same building as a mass-murderer! -- then he would be turning into the kind of person he had worked most of his life to put behind bars. If he said no, who knows what might happen to Elizabeth? Who knows what might have already happened?"

"Er... I'll have to consult with James," he replied, words sticking in his throat as he tried to choke them up. "Erghm... Other than being free, of course, what would be in it for us? Uhm... It's hard to get a passport or a -- a visa here, isn't it?"

Barrett Garrett gave yet another tic-ish grin. "I have a friend in the docks business."

Docks? Will thought frantically. Isn't that where criminals exchange narcotics and dirty magazines?!

"...Oh..." he said, very weakly.

"He'll be able to get us on a boat in no time at all. Why don't you ask Jamie there what he thinks... he could stand to wake up for a minute or two."

Will's eyes widened and he bit his bottom lip, trying to imagine the outcome of whichever he picked. Good and Not Good tore at his brains, fighting in a way that the poor boy had only ever seen on When Exotic Carnivorous Beasts Find Their Way Into Dinner Parties and Attack!.

"...James?" he said, swallowing very hard. "James, wake up for a minute."

"I hate you," came the reply from the depths of Norrington.

"James... There's a crazed murderer here that wants to help us out. ...What should I do?"

James sat up very abruptly, gave Barrett a funny look and said: "If he can get us out of this filthy place, do whatever he asks you to."

Will whimpered.