Disclaimer: Please see chapter 1, I'm not going to add the thing to every single page. :-p

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Jack stared at the hatch to the hold, watching as his first mate disappeared below. He wasn't worried in the least until another crewman, Jeffries, he thought, or Jamison, he never could remember which one was which, came dashing up from the hold moments later, calling to him as he approached.

"Mr. Gibbs wants to see you below Cap'n," he spoke urgently, taking the wheel without order as Jack strode past him to the hold.

"What the bloody hell is the commotion about," Jack began as he climbed down. Turning, he came face to face with a very somber Gibbs.

"Stowaway, sir," he said matter-of-factly. "And she's hurt."

Jack's sleep deprived mind was still struggling to process those words as Gibbs stepped aside, allowing him to see the still form on the floor before him. Kneeling down, he sucked in his breath as his eyes confirmed what his mind was not quite sure of. There was a woman on board his ship. Dressed in pants, boots and a baggy shirt, that when dry may have masked her gender from casual observers, but when wet, (as now) clung to the gentle curves that marked her figure as undeniably female. The woman was remarkably striking despite her crudely shortened amber hair. Only her fearful pallor kept the faint stirrings in Jack's gut in check. Reaching for a pulse along her neck, he was struck, worriedly, by how cold her skin was.

Rising quickly, he turned to his crew, "You three," he said, gesturing to the men who had uncovered her body, "Gibbs, get her to my cabin... and move her carefully."

"Aye Captain," Gibbs acknowledged the order without question.

"The rest o'ye, get these supplies stowed. Account for any losses. I want this ship in order come dinner."

"Aye," his crew responded, scurrying to their tasks as he emerged quickly from the hold and strode across the deck to his quarters.

Jack hastily gathered several extra blankets from his dresser, removing a pair of breeches and a dry shirt as an afterthought, and laying them on the end of his bed, just as Gibbs, Cooley, and the others entered his cabin, carefully bearing the limp figure of his mysterious female stowaway. Gently, Netanya's body was placed onto the captain's rather large bed at the center of the rear of room.

"Back to yer duties now," Mr. Gibbs ordered his companions. "No one disturbs us unless absolutely necessary," Jack added just as the men reached his cabin door.

"Understood Captain," Cooley said as he closed the cabin door behind them.

Jack and Gibbs turned back and surveyed the scene before them. The petite woman before them could have easily been mistaken for a child were it not for her mature development. Jack guessed she was no younger than nineteen years of age. Thick, wavy hair, scraggly from her attempts to disguise herself, had already begun to soak the pillow beneath her head. Her normally fair complexion was now deathly pale; her lips displaying a bluish tinge. Her chest rose and fell with slow, shallow breaths, and a thing trickle of blood still oozed from her forehead where a narrow gash above her right eyebrow hadn't completely scabbed over. Were it not for the fact that she was well on her way to resembling a corpse, Jack would have further entertained the thought that this mysterious woman was really in fact, quite striking.

Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Jack sat alongside Netanya's prone figure and nimbly began to unlace her soaked shirt. Gibbs moved silently to his side, dry shirt in hand. Raising the lasses' arms above her head, Jack quickly worked to both remove the soaking wet shirt from her chilled body and redress her naked torso with the dry shirt proffered by Gibbs. He reminded himself as he glimpsed her flawless skin that he was in this position only in an attempt to save her from dying from some combination of shock and cold. If she ever awakened, perhaps he would allow himself the luxury of getting to know her better.

Closing his eyes, Jack hesitated, clinging to his self control, as his fingers moved to undo the fastenings of her breeches.

"Ye must Cap'n," Gibbs spoke, reading his actions, "her only chance is to be warmed up and you can't very accomplish that leaving her soaked as a cat." He held the dry pants now, in readiness.

Making eye contact briefly with his closest friend aboard the Pearl, Jack nodded almost imperceptibly. Hooking his fingers around the waistband of her breeches, he began to peel the garment down her legs, forcing himself to avert his eyes as he did. A sharp intake of air from Gibbs drew his gaze quickly back to the girl, causing his face to flush with a deep, raw emotion. These reactions were not stimulated because of her lack of undergarments however.

As Jack cast aside the wet garment and began to gently but quickly draw up their dry replacement, he couldn't keep his gaze from taking in the vast array of bruises and cuts that liberally coated her legs from knee to hip. Layers of bruises in various stages of healing were most concentrated around her thighs and small crescent shaped cuts of various sizes and depths circled around her knees. Jack's stomach churned as he fastened the breeches, as his mind finally found an identity for the marks that encircled her hips and buttocks. Bright purple and fainter yellow palm prints, more than he could count, had been layered like tattoos on her delicate pale skin. The crescents he realized with disgust, were nail marks. "Where did you come from Lass?" he thought to himself as he gazed at her still unconscious form.

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