Jack felt in almost ridiculously high spirits as he followed the others down the slope away from the Governor's residence. Being out of prison was one hell of a tonic, and getting rid of the handcuffs cheered him up no end as well. He had been beginning to think that he was stuck with the things permanently - in theory at least he had been wearing them for fifteen years. Catching up with the rest of the group, he handed the rolled up chart to Josiah with an elaborate flourish, then caught Anne into a hug, spun her in a circle, and kissed her hard on the mouth. Barlowe's eyes nearly popped out on stalks.

"Jack!" His shock was obvious. Anne pushed her way out of Jack's enthusiastic embrace, and glared furiously. Jack got the distinct impression that she would have punched him, had Barlowe not been there to hopefully get the wrong idea about their relationship. He had rather been counting on that.

"It's alright, Barlowe." She spoke with the tone of voice that one might use for an annoying small child or a recalcitrant dog. "Captain Jack and I are old friends."

"So I can see." Barlowe looked away, struggling not to appear offended. Josiah laughed loudly.

"Jack, you're incorrigible. Most people might have slowed down somewhat in their old age." He frowned suddenly. "But then you don't appear to be old. Has old age passed you by?"

"Age?" Jack also frowned, then realised what the captain meant. "Oh. Yeah. I don't age much, that's all. Some people don't show it."

"Fifteen years shows on a man's face, Jack." Anne was frowning at him as well now. "And on a woman's. It's less noticeable with some people than it is with others. You'd hardly see the difference in Celeste. But there is still a difference."

"It's been fifteen years." He looked away, hoping to avoid anything like a direct question from either one of them. "You just don't remember how I looked then."

"I've seen your face a thousand times since then, Jack." Josiah's voice was gentle. Anne nodded.

"And I never forget a face. It was a useful trick in my old line of work, back at the Shark's Tooth. Always knowing every customer, even the ones who had been away at sea for years. You haven't changed, Jack. You haven't changed a day. You wander back into our lives wearing the same clothes, with that same scarf knotted around your throat. The material isn't faded or worn, and those are those same absurd boots that you were wearing before. You left your own on the roof of the Shark's Tooth, and Celeste said that you'd taken a fisherman's instead. They're the same ones, Jack. How can any man turn up again fifteen years after he went away, without a single day of that time showing on his face, without any change in the colour of his hair, and without any change to the clothes that he's wearing? It just isn't possible."

"And yet clearly it is." He flashed her a hopeful smile, but all that she did in response was to reach out for the scarf at his neck and pull it aside.

"And no tide mark. No sign of a change in the colour of your skin where that scarf has been for the last fifteen years. The Governor accused you of witchcraft. Was he right?"

"Keep your voice down, Anne." Josiah was watching the soldiers and Lady Caroline nervously. They were slightly ahead of their former prisoners and did not seem to be paying any attention to the conversation going on behind them, but there were some things that he did not want even to risk being overheard. The accusations of witchcraft that seemed to go hand in hand with Jack's particular eccentricities certainly came into that category. "Jack, I always knew that you were no ordinary man. I saw how you came to be amongst us the first time. I saw your ship. Anne and I both saw it, and the things that it could do. We've not forgotten how you took us aboard it, and let us both off it later." He broke off, and Jack failed to meet his eyes. "Is this another thing that you can't explain?"

"I could explain it. Probably." But time travel was never a thing that it was easy to account for. It was hard enough in a scientific age, but in a world where flight was not yet known, explaining a flight in time was well nigh impossible. People took it so hard, too - the idea that Jack was from a time when they, and all that they knew, were long gone. Some asked questions about the future - questions that he couldn't and mustn't answer. Some were terrified by the idea, or were thrown into a panic. It wasn't a subject that he rarely enjoyed raising. There were reasons why the Time Agency forbade its members from even hinting at the subject in conversation. There were reasons why time travellers didn't generally like to broadcast what they were.

"Yes, well we'd best forget it for now." Josiah was slowing, for they had reached the docks, where a number of ships lay berthed. Lady Caroline and her men were already gathered beside one particular vessel, and Jack realised that he was getting his first look at Josiah's ship - the replacement for his beloved Dragon. She was a lot smaller than her predecessor - not big enough for a crew even half the size of the old one. She was still beautiful though; sleek and clearly built for speed. Her name was painted on the side, in scarlet as though to be sure that everybody could read it - that everybody would know what she was, and who her master was: Seagull. It was a name far removed from the Dragon, but it was a name that seemed to fit. She was a beautiful vessel. Josiah drew to a halt, and gestured up at her.

"So what do you think, Jack? Is she a fine ship?"

"I'm not exactly an expert." He smiled at the other man's pride and enthusiasm. "But yeah, she does have a certain attraction."

"More than that. She's the finest ship in the Caribbean. Built to order by a plantation owner with more money than sense, and a desire for an ocean holiday. The ship was taken by pirates after less than three days at sea, and when Barlowe found her for me, she was in a terrible state." He shot the soldiers a sharp glance. "She'd better not be now."

"I'm sure that everything is in order, Captain Day." Lady Caroline looked a little tense. "How long will it be before we can set sail?"

"Not long." Josiah led the way onboard, and Anne and Barlowe disappeared to complete their allotted tasks.Josiah rolled out the chart, and studied it for several thoughtful moments.

"Well?" asked Lady Caroline, with obvious impatience. He didn't answer at first.

"Your ship would be useful, Jack," he eventually commented instead. "We would be able to survey the seas much faster that way."

"I know. It's a no go though I'm afraid. I'll be lucky if it ever works as well as it used to. Right not it's not working at."

"Then we shall just have to do this my way." The pirate captain nodded his head slowly. "It's perhaps for the best. Given our present company."

"Probably." Jack held up his right arm, where his wrist computer was always strapped. "But on the other hand, if you've got an advantage, you might as well use it. Get us out to that area, Joe. I might be able to track the Governor then."

"We'll be at sea! It does not hold tracks like the earth. You can't follow a man in such a fashion upon the water."

"I can." Jack flashed him a grin. "Trust me."

"Trust you? I trusted you before, and you left me for fifteen years." Josiah sighed, unable to say the things that he wanted to say when there were others listening in. "Yes, I trust you. For better or for worse, and for reasons I shall never understand, I trust you. I shall probably regret it."

"You should never have regrets." Jack wanted to smile at him fondly, and touch his face or stroke his hair, but he knew that the other man would be mortified in front of so many witnesses. It barely occurred to him that Josiah might not even be interested after a fifteen year separation. "Regrets are a fool's game." The pirate captain merely frowned.

"Here." He pushed the chart into Jack's hands. "Never mind regrets - go below and find my cabin. It shouldn't be difficult. There's a bigger version of this chart there, that shows the surrounding seas, including this coast. Bring it back up here along with my compass."

"Yes sir." Jack mocked him gently with a snappy salute, but Josiah merely raised an eyebrow.

"My ship, Jack. And a ship needs only one captain."

"Fair point." Jack left on his errand, willingly enough, rather glad to be out of sight of the sharp-eyed Lady Caroline for a while. Possibly she was suspicious of the scarf around his neck, or had heard rather more than he would have liked of the earlier conversation about him. At any rate, there was something about her scrutiny that he really didn't enjoy.

It was easy to find Josiah's cabin, just as he had been told. There weren't many to choose from on this newer, smaller ship, and the captain's was at the end of a short corridor, with a brass nameplate and an ornate door handle to mark it out. Jack went in, finding a lighter, more airy space than the captain's cabin aboard the Dragon, with less of the sporadic ostentation. There were heavy red curtains hanging before a large window, and a couple of fairly expensive looking paintings breaking up the monotony of the plain bulkheads. Jack crossed to the desk and rummaged through the various charts that lay there. They were not hugely different to the space charts that he used when navigating his own ship, and they made a certain sense to him even though he was not a sailor. It was not hard to find the right one, and a quick glance told him about the region they were heading for. There were a number of coves that might provide refuge for kidnappers, and it would take forever to search through them all. The 51st century to the rescue once again, he thought grimly, and wondered how best to use his wrist computer without the soldiers seeing him. He doubted that they would be as accepting of such things as Josiah and Anne had proved to be, fifteen years before. They didn't really look the type to be accepting of anything.

"You seemed to be taking some time." It was Josiah, standing in the doorway. "I thought perhaps you were lost." Jack didn't look up.

"I stopped to look at this." He held up the chart. "You told them I was some kind of navigation genius. I thought maybe I should try playing the part."

"Yes." Josiah laughed faintly. "Sorry about that. I had to tell them something, so they wouldn't send you back to the prison. I was angry with you Jack, but I didn't want you hanged."

"Angry with me?" That didn't make sense to Jack for a moment - then he nodded slowly. "Oh, right. Fifteen years is a long time."

"But not, it would appear, to you." Josiah came over and sat down on the edge of the desk. "There is a story here, isn't there. A reason why you haven't aged. We should be able to have a few minutes alone now..."

"I live well. Plenty of fresh air and organic vegetables."

"Jack..."

"Sorry." He sat down on the edge of the desk as well, still holding the chart. It had rolled itself up in his hands by now. "Where's Lady Dracula and her mob?"

"Lady Dracula?"

"Never mind. They're not down here, anyway. That's the main thing." He was silent for a second more, then looked askance at his companion. "Do you ever think about yesterday, Joe? Or how about a year from now, or two hundred years? Did you ever wonder what the world might be like in three thousand years? Or what it was like three thousand years ago? Or about the other worlds that there might be? It's 1750 now - astronomy is progressing, right?"

"There are no other worlds, Jack. And as for the way that this world might change in one or two or even seventeen thousand years - it's immaterial. I shall never see it."

"You could. No, listen to me. Just suppose that you could see it. That you could travel to another point in time. Visit Rome when it was first being built; see dinosaurs when they were more than just fossils? Sorry. I guess dinosaurs are another thing you don't really know about yet." He sighed. "All the people in all the time zones, and I have to be having this discussion with somebody who thinks science is just another kind of philosophy."

"I don't--"

"You're forgiven for the dinosaurs. I guess I'm a little early for that. But it's more than a hundred years now since Galileo was doing his thing. You know something about space now, right? That the Earth goes round the sun? That there are other planets out there?"

"Does this have something to do with why you don't age?"

"No." Jack's shoulders slumped slightly. "Probably not. Time doesn't work the same way for me, Josiah, that's all I'm trying to say. For you it's been fifteen years since we last met, and I'm sorry about that. Really sorry. For me it's been just a day."

"Then you truly are a magician." Josiah looked away, towards the door that led back to the rest of the ship. "And a magician would have no plans to stay here, would he."

"You'd honestly want me to?" Jack was confused, if somewhat encouraged. Josiah's expression changed in a rush.

"No. No, that wasn't really what I meant. You have to understand, Jack... how it's been." He seemed to be struggling for the right words. "I thought that you were best forgotten. That I didn't mind that it seemed you were gone for good. And then suddenly, seeing you again... I thought that my heart might burst through my chest."

"Ow." Jack winced in sympathy, and for a second Josiah seemed about to laugh. Then he looked away again.

"I really have missed you, Jack."

"Thanks." He wasn't sure quite how else to answer. "I'd say the same, but like I said, I've only been gone a day. I'm sure I would have missed you, though. Given the chance."

"I doubt it. A man who can flit through time like a ghost through walls, has no need of anchors." Josiah sighed. "And speaking of time, we're wasting it. We should be about our business."

"Yeah. Getting the Governor back. You still drinking to his damnation with every glass?"

"I fear that I am a creature of habit, Jack." This time Josiah really did laugh, though briefly. "And besides, he deserves it. He kills people just because they look like pirates. He burns houses as punishment when a man is seen talking to someone who may be a pirate. I certainly wouldn't miss him, if we weren't able to get him back."

"Except that her ladyship up there would probably have us all hanging from the yardarm before we got the chance to celebrate." Jack frowned. "What is a yardarm, anyhow? If I'm going to be hanging from it, I want to know what it is."

"Nobody will be hanging, from yardarms or elsewhere." Josiah stood up. "Come on. Look sharp. We have an enemy to rescue, and a vastly annoying woman to charm. That will be your task, I think."

"You want me to sweet talk that!" Jack shook his head. "No way. You might be the boss on this ship, Joe, but there is no way I'm obeying that order."

"Josiah. And you don't think that you could manage it?" There was a teasing look in the captain's eyes. Jack glared.

"Oh, that's smart. You think I'm that easy to figure out, right? Well I'm not biting. I might flirt a bit here and there, but just because I'm irresistible doesn't mean I don't have standards."

"Here and there! Jack, with Anne and myself you never stop. Why not with Lady Caroline?"

"Because she's..." He made a face, that proved to be rather more eloquent that any words. "It's been fifteen years, Josiah. You're confusing me with somebody else. I haven't flirted with Tim, or with the soldiers. Besides, you're going to need me to track down the Governor." He tapped his wrist computer. "Tell Tim to get friendly with her. It'd make Anne's day."

"That it would." The pirate smiled faintly. "I don't think that I'm confusing you, though, Jack. Much though I've tried to forget you these last fifteen years, I've never been able to manage it. I remember your ways. Your manner. I remember wondering if I ought to be shocked by your behaviour at the time. Then I decided that it was the way that you were, and that I could hardly judge you by our ways, when you had just fallen out of the sky in a burning ship. You're no ordinary man, and I certainly remember that."

"Thanks." Jack grinned crookedly. "Come on. Before they start wondering what we're up to down here."

"Jack!" Josiah looked pleasantly scandalised. "You have a talent for making my mind work in the most twisted ways."

"Years of practice and experience." Jack slapped him on the shoulder, then gave the shoulder a gentle squeeze. "And if you don't get me up on deck again soon, I'm going to wind up trying to twist your mind even more." He smirked. "I might like to try twisting a few other bits, too."

"Get up on deck." Josiah gave him a push that seemed mostly good-natured. "You may fly through time, my friend, but I have to plod through it like the rest of mankind. You can't jump back into my life after all this time and expect me to fall at your feet."

"I'd only known your for a few hours the last time." Jack conceded anyway, allowing himself to be propelled back along the corridor. Josiah gave a short laugh.

"I was a lot younger then. And besides, for all you know, I've already found someone who deserves my fidelity. Someone who isn't a magician from a world I could never hope to share."

Jack turned to look at him, as they both climbed up the ladder leading to the deck. "If I can visit your world, Josiah, there's no reason why you shouldn't visit mine."

"I'm not a magician. And besides, we don't all want just visits, Jack. We don't all want fleeting unions a decade or more apart." Josiah pushed him gently on up the ladder. "If it has been just one day for you, then I'm truly sorry. But for me it has been so much longer, and so much has happened. I can't be the man that I was then. So for now we worry about Lord Charles, and we win our freedom from his... charming... lady wife. And then... then we shall see."

"Yeah." Jack clambered out through the hatch. Josiah's words made sense, though it wasn't easy for him to hear them. He had seemed to sweep the captain off his feet before, but this time he sensed that it would be a much harder fight. Still - a challenge was always good. Turning around, with a flourish he pulled Josiah up onto the deck after him, then snapped him a jaunty salute and headed off for the bow. Josiah sighed.

"How are things?" It was Anne, appearing at his side with the same silent tread she had always seemed to possess. Josiah might feel his age now, when confronted with an ageless Jack, but Anne never seemed to acknowledge the passing years at all.

"Things?" He saw that she was concerned, presumably about how he was feeling now that Jack had returned. He smiled. "Things are fine. I'm fine. How is the ship?"

"She's in good shape. They've not damaged her. There's some superficial splintering along the port side, where that cannonball struck her, but that shouldn't cause us any worry at sea. Barlowe is happy with the condition of the stores. I would say that we're ready to go."

"Good. Cast off, and we'll see what kind of sailors these soldiers are likely to make."

"A guinea says that they'll all be green and bent over the rail before the sun gets much higher."

"My dear, you know that I never bet." He smiled at her. "Especially when I'm sure that I'd be losing."

"They'll be begging us to take them back to shore long before we've found their precious Governor." She went to the bow to untie the large rope that kept them moored, and nodded to Barlow, who followed suit with a second rope further aft. It was hardly a quick task to take the ship out of the dock and onto the open water, but they made good time nonetheless. A brisk wind was in their favour, and the Seagull was an obliging little vessel. Jack soon realised that he was enjoying himself immensely. The weather was much better than it had been during his brief trip aboard the Dragon, and not being confined below decks infinitely improved the experience. He stood with the wind ruffling his hair, and the sun chasing away the last of the prison blues, and smiled a happy smile. This was definitely a good way to travel. Having other people do most of the work certainly helped.

They weighed anchor in the afternoon, in the place where Lord Charles had intended to do his fishing. Three of the soldiers looked decidedly green, though the voyage did not seem to have been too hard on Lady Caroline. She sat on a chair that somebody had fetched for her from below decks, and fanned herself with a tiny lace handkerchief. Despite her assertion that she could be as much a part of the crew as could Anne, she had done nothing at all of any use so far. Not that Jack wished her ill for that. He had done little himself save some steering, and some highly confused attempts to make head or tail of some of the ropes. The latter had left him half convinced that the ropes were more tangled than spaghetti, and that somebody must have attached them all wrongly. Josiah had laughed at him, though, and that in itself had made a rope burn and a minor case of hurt pride rather more worthwhile. There had been fondness in that laugh, Jack was sure of it. The fondness of a man who wouldn't want to keep him at arm's length forever. Or so Jack chose to interpret it.

"And now what?" asked Lady Caroline, when they had all stood around for some while, staring out to sea as though expecting to see her husband floating somewhere. "How do we find out where Charles is?"

"Within a day's sailing of here, there's a stretch of coastline riddled with potential hiding places." Anne stared off towards the horizon, apparently picturing the coastline in question. "There's a reason why pirates and the like have always used these waters. It's hardly because of the lax enforcement of the law in these parts."

"Quite." Lady Caroline's voice was like ice; clearly she disliked Anne intensely. Anne, for her part, clearly didn't care.

"We have several options at this stage. Either we sail along the coast and try to search for the Governor that way, or we find somebody who might know something, and see what he can tell us." Josiah didn't sound happy at the prospect. "Neither is an ideal method, but both are better than sitting back at the town and hoping for more news."

"I have my methods too, remember." Jack's left hand moved unconsciously to toy with the strap of his wrist computer. Josiah nodded.

"You always have your methods, Jack. The question is, do the rest of us understand them?"

"I would certainly doubt it." Jack flashed him a hopeful smile. "You trust me, right?"

"You know that I do." Josiah hesitated nonetheless. Trust was one thing - but the ways of Jack Harkness were complicated and strange. Lady Caroline stood up, her gaze sharp.

"What is this?" she asked, with a decidedly imperious tone. "Your own methods? Methods that we wouldn't understand? Are you some kind of soothsayer?"

"No." Jack smiled warmly at her, but by the look of her face, his smile had found one of the few people that it couldn't charm. "No, I'm just really good at finding people."

"Then find my husband." This time her voice sounded as though it could have frozen the sea clear from Jamaica to Ireland without too much effort. Jack nodded.

"Alright. If you're sure you want him back."

"Quite sure." She met his eyes, holding his gaze with a look so sharp that it could almost have sliced into his eyeballs. Jack's smile didn't waver, but if it had belonged to a less self-assured man, it would have exploded into a million fragments.

"Okay. You got it." He turned away, heading back to the bows where he all but climbed out onto the bowsprit. Josiah had followed him, he knew; but the others seemed to be holding back. Flipping open the cover of his wrist computer, he typed in a brief series of instructions, and studied the tiny screen. Josiah's face showed itself for a moment, reflected there behind the flashing, scrolling words, and Jack smiled. Then he looked up.

"Interested?"

"I can hardly fail to be. Everything about you is interesting, Jack."

"Glad to hear it." Jack frowned back at the screen. "Ordinarily I'd use the communicator in this to contact my ship, and have the computer there use the onboard scanners to look for Charlie. They're more powerful than the one I have here. That's a little out of the question just now though."

"Is your ship badly damaged?"

"Yeah, you could say that. When I blew up the Kamon I pretty much blew myself up in the process. The ship didn't enjoy the experience too much." Jack flashed him a rueful grin. "Not something I'd recommend."

"The Kamon? But you killed that fifte--" Josiah shook his head. "I find all of this so hard to comprehend, Jack."

"It's just time travel. Like sailing from the docks to this place, except that I sailed from 1735 to 1750. Time is like space, in its own way. You just sail a bit differently, is all."

"And all without magic, of any kind?"

"Science. Science and technology. Once upon a time nobody would have believed that you could look through a tube and make the stars seem closer, but you own a telescope, right?"

"I do own a telescope, yes. But that's--"

"Different, yes I know. You understand telescopes. Two hundred years ago you wouldn't have though. Two hundred years ago you might have thought it was witchcraft. Right?"

"Yes." Josiah nodded slowly. "So where you come from, does everybody travel in time?"

"No. If everybody did it we'd be in a hell of a mess. You have to know what you're doing." He frowned back at his wrist computer, and turned in a slow circle, watching the screen all the while. "Has it rained since he disappeared?"

"Rained?" Josiah shook his head slowly. "I was in gaol, back in the town. I have no idea if it has rained here."

"Good point." Jack tapped a few more instructions into his computer, and a few more scrolling lists of results ran past on the screen. "Looks like it has. Early this morning."

"How can you tell?"

"I can't. This can." He waggled his wrist. "I need to do a stronger scan. The rain might have washed away any sign that he was ever here."

"Well I would suggest hurrying. Lady Caroline looks ready to demand answers, and I imagine that she would do so with the force of arms."

"Yeah. It must look pretty strange to her. Me stood here waving my arm in the air." Jack industriously typedinstructions, then waved his arm in the air again. "The scanners are usually operating on a low level, so they'll have scanned Charlie when we were together before. All they have to do is check for matching readings now." The computer beeped, and he grinned. "Kinda like that."

"You've found him?" Josiah didn't look at all convinced. Jack shook his head.

"Not exactly. I've got a sort of a fix, though. Look here." He held out the wrist computer, and pointed at the screen. "He was here. And he headed... south west. If we follow, I can scan again closer to the shore. I should be able to pinpoint him more exactly then."

"South west?" The pirate captain was frowning at the screen, trying to see how the leather band strapped to Jack's wrist could possibly tell this, and how Jack could hope to interpret all the spinning, flashing symbols and pictures that kept appearing on the screen. "You're sure?"

"Yeah. Sure enough. Why? That's not back the way we just came, surely."

"No." Josiah leant back against the wall, staring at the deck at his feet. "No. South west from here, on a direct heading, leads us to Independence. It's a very small town that grew up around the beached wreckage of a pirate ship, the Independence. She was destroyed in a battle with about six other ships, and the survivors washed ashore with all that was left of their vessel. They pitched a camp of sorts, and over the years that camp grew. It's not much of a town at all - you remember the settlement around the Shark's Tooth Inn? It's no bigger than that." He shook his head, looking distinctly unhappy. "But it's a tough place, for all its lack of size. More murderers and cut-throats per square foot than you'd find in the most damnable part of London."

"Sounds like my kind of town." Jack couldn't help grinning. "It's really that bad? No offence, Josiah, but you're a pirate. You must have done a fair bit in your time that other people find pretty offensive."

"I've killed. I've stolen things, I've sunk ships, and I've held at least one person for ransom. It's not the most blameless life, but I'm not ashamed of it. The people of Independence are different. It's not safe there."

"We're not exactly helpless. I've seen you and Anne fight, and I know that I can give a good account of myself. Plus we have soldiers to back us up. They might be annoying, but they must be some use with weapons."

"We can fight, yes. I'd rather not have to, given how greatly we'd be outnumbered, but we can certainly fight. It's not that simple though Jack. To get into that town, and get the Governor out alive - if he's in there - would require stealth rather than force. We could anchor just off the coast and blast the place with our cannons, but what good would that do to Lord Charles?"

"Then we sneak in. A small party - you, me and Anne maybe. You broke me out of prison. You can break him out of wherever."

"Yes. Yes, I did, didn't I." Josiah smiled faintly. "But most of the guards had gone that day. They were out fighting your beast, or trying to fight it. Here we would be facing a town full of people; and they're people who have no reason to love me. They know me, they know Anne, they probably know Barlowe. If we were seen it would be a disaster."

"But they're pirates too, right? So are we talking professional rivalry here, or something else?"

"Something else." Josiah glanced briefly back towards the others, who for the most part appeared to be arguing. Anne, probably, trying to dissuade Lady Caroline from interfering in whatever Josiah and Jack were up to. "The captain of the Independence, and the leader of the town, is a woman named Kate. She and I were once... close." Hewinced. "No, not close. Not really. It was several years ago, and I was lonely. For a while I thought that it might work, but instead it turned unpleasant. If she sees me, she's likely to slit my throat and enjoy doing it."

"Then we don't let her see you. I did say we should sneak in, and that usually means not being seen. What do you say?"

"I suppose I say that it's worth taking the risk, given that so many lives depend upon the safe rescue of Lord Charles." Josiah didn't look happy. "You win, Jack. I'll turn us about. You tell the others."

"Aye aye captain." Jack snapped off a salute that managed to look both jaunty and more or less respectful, then set off across the deck. Josiah smiled after him as he went. It was all so hopelessly strange to have him back, unchanged and young. Josiah had tried to follow the explanations, but everything had gone over his head. He didn't seem to understand any part of it. All he knew was that a part of his past had just dropped back into his life like some rogue cannonball, and a part of him was delighted about that. To see Jack again, to hear his strange words and see his strange ways - it made that one part of him want to smile all the time. If he could only have understood it all, he might have been able to enjoy it more fully. Instead he could only struggle with it, and try to understand what was suddenly making his heart beat so fast. Confusion? Or perhaps something that he had long forgotten how to embrace.

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They anchored around a promontory that hid them from the little town of Independence, and went ashore by the Seagull's lone longboat. Despite the best efforts of Jack and Josiah, it was not the small, three-man party they had been hoping for. Lady Caroline, for all her lack of experience, insisted on accompanying them, with the faithful Hallows in tow - though he did at least help with the rowing. With Anne, Jack and he to power the oars they made good time, and the sun was still just above the horizon when they reached shore. They hid the boat by dragging it up far above the high water mark, amongst a tumble of rocks, then struck out on foot for the town. Josiah was restless, Lady Caroline was greatly ill at ease, and Hallows looked all the while as though he expected an attack from his sometime prisoners, but Jack wasn't ready to give up hope yet. They could still pull this off. It would be dark soon, and there at least was an advantage that could hide a thousand ills - usually. On the other hand, so far the Caribbean had not exactly proved to be his luckiest ever locale.

Hallows insisted on leading the way, although if he actually knew where he was going he gave no indication of it. Jack swept the area with the scanner in his wrist computer, but the results were somewhat inconclusive. There were people about, certainly, but they didn't appear to be moving. For all he knew, they were asleep in their little town. Too many weapons of the period didn't show up on the scanner, which was calibrated to search for something rather more sophisticated than cutlasses and flintlocks, so he couldn't even be sure if the people he detected were armed. He pressed on after Hallows with an uneasy feeling, and tried to keep his eyes peeled. It wasn't easy. The world was in total darkness - the darkness that only existed in places where electricity was unknown. With the moon now vanished behind drifting cloud, he could barely see Josiah just beside him.

"We're close to the town," hissed Anne, as they rounded a corner at the bottom of a towering cliff. Jack put out a hand to slow Hallows.

"You sure?" he asked Anne. She nodded.

"I've been here before. Josiah and I both have. Independence is off limits nowadays because of..." She glanced over at Josiah... "happenings. We used to come here, though, when we were still allies of a sort."

"Of course you used to come here." Hallows looked disapproving - or sounded it. It wasn't entirely possible to see the expression on his face. "All pirates. All as bad as each other."

"Not quite, no. If I was to capture you, I wouldn't shoot you unless you gave me good reason." Josiah nodded in the direction of the town. "The people of Independence would shoot you without a second thought, just because of who you are and who you are with. Not all pirates are cut from the same cloth."

"I'll take your word for it." Hallows didn't sound convinced. "At any rate, let's just get on with this, shall we? You may not want to see the Governor home safe and sound, but I do."

"I assure you that I have every intention of seeing him safe if I can. The lives of my crew depend upon it." Josiah began to move forward again, but Jack stopped him.

"Hang on." He tapped a few keys on his wrist computer, scanning the area for signs of life. If they were about to enter the town, it was better that they be pre-warned of danger. His scanner might not be able to tell him who was awake and who was asleep, or even who was armed, but it should at least help to decide which areas they should avoid. The readings showed him various life-forms - glowing dots and bio-traces, and little moving images that were people circling nearby. Guards out on patrol most likely. A lot of guards. A lot of guards moving very quickly in his direction. "Uh oh."

"What's wrong?" asked Josiah, just as the light of a flaming torch broke through the darkness up ahead. Jack's shoulders slumped.

"Somehow I don't think sneaking in is really an option."

Hallows spun about. "What do you--"

"Nobody move!" With a roar, the lawless men of Independence came out of the darkness, descending upon them in an instant. Jack and his companions struggled, but there was little opportunity to fight, and in no time at all they were overpowered through sheer force of numbers. Hurried and hustled along, they were taken down a dark, worn path, to the place where the crew of the long lost pirate ship had made their ramshackle home. It was lit by a number of fires along the sea front, and by torches that flickered and burned, casting an irregular glow that dazzled the unwary. They got their first proper look at their captors, then - twenty or more of them, in ragged, colourful clothing, armed to the teeth and clamouring about trespass and justice. Only when their ranks parted to allow a woman to pass did the noise fade away and the jostling cease. A pair of men stepped forward, holding their torches up to allow the woman to properly see what they had brought her. She smiled instantly, though her eyes did not stray much along the line of prisoners. They were interested only in one man - Josiah. Jack didn't miss the look that passed between the two pirate captains, and he couldn't miss the obvious fact that neither was pleased to see the other. He eyed the woman with growing unease.

"Kate?"

Josiah nodded, not with enthusiasm. "Kate."

"Ah." She was beautiful though - he had to give her that much. Josiah's opinion of her had coloured his own, and he trusted the other man's instincts - but by Mars she was beautiful. Red-blonde hair lightened in streaks by the sun, skin deepened to a darker gold for the same reason; a billowing shirt in scarlet silk that gave her a swashbuckling appearance Jack approved of most highly. Her eyes, though... bluer than the sea though they might have been, her eyes were as dead and cold as a nuclear winter. She stared hard at Josiah, and he met her gaze steadily.

"Josiah." With one hand she gestured towards him, like an auctioneer making the most of a splendid lot. "Captain Josiah Day, men. Once the captain of a fine pirate ship; now apparently at the beck and call of the wife of the Governor of Jamaica."

"That's not quite how I would have phrased it myself." He tried to smile, but didn't quite succeed. "It's good to see you again, Kate."

"No it isn't. When we last met we both agreed that we never wanted to see each other again. I told you that if I so much as laid eyes upen you, I'd cut your own eyes out. We're not friends, Josiah. And if you've come here to free the Governor, we're a whole new kind of enemy."

"So that's the way it is?" He seemed sad, and probably was. It seemed to Jack that the pirate captain considered himself responsible for her hatred of him; that he believed that if he been stronger, and not allowed himself to have that brief liaison, then their relationship might not be the way it was now. Jack was not inclined to blame only Josiah - but then he and his friend had a very different attitude towards guilt and responsibility.

"That's the way it is." Her eyes trailed across the little group. "You're all dead, each and every one of you. And before morning, you'll be nothing but food for the birds."

"Kate..." Josiah was trying to smile at her again, but it was obvious that his heart was not in it. Her eyes shot daggers at him in return.

"You knew that you wouldn't leave here alive if I saw you, so why try to change my mind now? And why should I stop with just you? The wife of the Governor of Jamaica; a soldier of the king's army; your most trusted associate..." Her eyes lingered upon Anne, showing clear hatred. "There's no reason why I should leave any of you alive."

"Kate--"

"I wanted a ransom. I'm owed that much. You know the sort of man that Lord Charles is. He killed most of my crew, and he killed my brother - but when I try to make him pay, you choose to help his wife get him back." She shook her head. "I didn't expect friendship from you, Josiah, but I don't expect to be slapped in the face instead."

"You're not being slapped in the face. I'm not here because I've taken the Governor's side against you, however it might appear. Why would I do that?" He shook his head sadly. "However we might feel about each other personally, Kate, we're still on the same side. You have my word on that."

"I've had your word once before, Josiah. It didn't do me any good then, and I've no reason to trust it now." Gleaming with contempt, her eyes turned away from him, and drifted back instead towards the rest of her prisoners. They rested upon Jack, the one face in the group that she didn't recognise, and the only one who wasn't looking at her with dislike. On the contrary - whatever his situation, and whatever his respect for Josiah's opinion, he couldn't help the gleam in his eyes and the somewhat libidinous grin that was brightening his face. He raised an eyebrow, unable to resist responding to her sudden attention.

"Hi." She frowned in return, and he mentally rolled his eyes at the lack of understanding. "Well good evening is technically inaccurate, and goodnight sounds a little too final for my liking. I'd compromise with 'hello', but you don't know that one either, do you."

"You're a foreigner," she concluded. His smile grew ever more warm.

"You can't begin to imagine just how foreign I am. If you were to put off the execution for a little while, maybe we could discuss a few of our... cultural differences." He took a step forward, trusting that he wasn't about to get shot. "Captain Jack Harkness, ma'am, at your service."

"Jack Harkness?" For a second she held his gaze; for one second she stared back at him, and he saw something stir within her eyes; then she snapped back around to look at Josiah, and there was a new kind of hatred in her expression. "Him? He's the one? Well congratulations, Josiah. I'm glad that you found each other again. Perhaps I'll let you watch him die before I kill you too."

"Um... excuse me?" Confused, Jack looked from one to the other of them. "Am I missing something here? It's Kate, isn't it. If I've done something to offend you, Kate, I'd be only too willing to help ease the pain." His smile brightened for a second. "I'm good at that.

"No doubt. Oh I've heard all about you, Jack. The nights when Josiah was sleeping badly. The nights when he dreamed aloud. I've heard all about you."

"You have?" For a second he grinned yet more broadly, his ego delighted by the idea that Josiah had talked about him - then abruptly it sunk in. Josiah, lying in bed with Kate, talking aloud in his sleep about the man he had so nearly had a relationship with. The man he had apparently never quite been able to leave behind. He winced. "Ah. Sorry about that. Still, there's no reason to take any of that personally. It's not Joe's fault if his mind wanders occasionally when he's asleep." He saw the sharp spark in Kate's eyes and winced again. "Or at... other moments..."

"I've wondered about you, over the years." She looked him up and down, though not in any kind of way that he liked. This was not the appraising eye of intrigue and interest, or the appreciative eye of attraction. It was the cold scrutiny of someone with a definite grudge. He could see then that Kate was more than a lover with an axe to grind. A brief fling ended through incompatibility was how Josiah had seen it. Kate obviously saw something very different. Quite suddenly she didn't seem entirely sane. Jack kept the warmth in his expression nonetheless.

"Josiah told me about you, too, when we knew that we were coming here. I was hoping to meet you. You're quite the legend in these parts."

"Everybody is afraid of me and my men." She was proud of that. It showed in the haughty lift of her head, and the sudden flare of light in her eyes. "Everybody. Or so I thought." For a second she frowned at him, the dislike giving way to interest. "You're not, are you."

"Oh, I am." He continued to meet her gaze, his eyes showing his own interest. Beside him Josiah was clearly edgy, but he was keeping quiet. Either he recognised that this conversation had to be between Jack and Kate alone, or he just didn't know what to say. Jack, meanwhile, moved forward slightly, to lessen the gap between him and the woman before him. "I'm petrified. Quaking, actually. You can probably feel it." To his surprise she smiled.

"You're an odd one for Josiah to choose. Odd in many ways, I think. Was that the attraction, Josiah?"

"You're quite wrong, Kate. I haven't seen Jack in fifteen years. Whatever you're thinking..."

"I'm not interested." She cut him dead, not caring in the slightest what he had been saying. "What I'm interested in now is your friend here. Tell me, Mr Harkness--"

"Captain," he corrected her, apparently not at all worried about the risks involved in interrupting and correcting somebody who showed every sign of being unbalanced. "Captain Jack, at..."

"At my service, yes, so you said. Well we'll see about that later. For now, tell me something, Captain Harkness. What price do you put on the lives of your companions here?"

"Price?" It was a clear enough question, but he queried it anyway. He didn't like the way this seemed to be heading. She smiled in answer, clear and cold and with eyes so icy that Jack could almost have believed they might snap.

"Yes. Price." She reached out with one hand, and took one of his, her body language a clear challenge to Josiah. "What do you think that they're worth?

"More than the Governor." He frowned. "You're not having a change of heart. So why act like you are?"

The glint in her eyes matched that in his own for the first time then. Playful. Warm. She almost smiled. "I've been waiting a long time to meet you, Captain Jack. I hoped that I might get the chance some day, but it's a big world. People disappear into it. I never dreamed that I'd have you here; you and Josiah, together, in the most perfect way. Now answer my question."

"What do I think they're worth? I don't know, I never had to buy a person before. That's what this is about, right? What it's worth to you to let us go? Well I don't have anything. Nothing that I can give you, anyway."

"I don't think that she's interested in what you've got, Jack. This isn't that kind of an exchange." Anne had been watching events with quiet scrutiny, but now she no longer wished to stay aloof. "Kate, this really isn't necessary."

"Be quiet!" Kate spat the word with a burst of fury that seemed to come from nowhere. "This is nothing to do with you!"

"Yes it is. Of course it is. I was there, Kate. I saw what happened between you and Josiah. It wasn't his fault, and it certainly wasn't Jack's. He's been away since the thirties. How can he have been to blame for anything that's happened here since then?"

"He'd quite like to know that himself, actually." Jack looked from one to the other of them, then over to Josiah. The latter had fallen quiet, and was staring at some indeterminate point away from everybody else. "You want me to do something, don't you. What is this? Some kind of revenge, because you think you lost Josiah over me?"

"Revenge is for fools." Kate smirked at him, then moved a little closer, and reached out with one hand to touch his face. "But I asked you how much you thought that these others were worth. Your life, perhaps?"

"I doubt it. Meaning no offence, but I tend to rate my own life pretty highly."

"Good. Then maybe you'll fight to keep it." She turned away, looking back towards Josiah. "I promised that I would kill you, Josiah, but I'll let you walk away from here alive. I'll let all of you walk away from here alive, and the governor too - if your great friend Captain Jack can win you your freedom. Do we have a deal?"

"Don't be such a damned fool, Kate." Josiah stirred himself from his thoughts, and turned sad eyes upon the woman he had tried to love. "Anne's right, and none of this is Jack's fault. If you want somebody to play your games, then why not let it be me. I am the only one who is responsible for what happened between the two of us."

"Perhaps. But on the other hand, it will be so much more entertaining to watch you watching him struggle. So much more entertaining. Jack?" She swung back around to face him. "What say you? A competition, with your lives as the prizes?"

"Strangely enough, I think it's a really bad idea." He glanced away briefly, then looked back at her. "If I don't accept the offer, we die anyway, right?"

"One by one, or all at once. Yes, you die anyway."

"Yeah. Thought so. But if I agree to this competition, and win, you'll let us go? Really let us go?"

"She's a woman of her word, Jack." Josiah sounded heavily tired. "But you won't win. She wouldn't offer the competition to begin with if she thought that there was any chance she would lose."

"Yeah. I kinda guessed that, too." All the same, though, trying seemed better than just standing around waiting to be executed. Where there was life, there was hope. And where there was hope there was... well, quite a big chance that hope would run away and leave him up to his armpits in trouble, if he was brutally honest. Even that was better than just getting shot, though. He nodded. "Yeah, okay. I'll take the deal. What's the competition?"

"A fight. Simple enough. No rules, and anything goes. The winner is the one who manages to stay on their feet." She smiled, very coldly and very cruelly. "Let's see what you're made of, Jack. See a little of the reason why Josiah seemed to prefer you to me."

"Me not being psychotic springs to mind." The words fell out before he had considered the consequences - but Kate showed no reaction. The insult had gone right over her head. He silently thanked psychologists for not having invented themselves yet in the eighteenth century. "Josiah never said he preferred me, you know. Thinking about someone doesn't mean you want them."

"Will you fight?" She had no interest in being talked out of her plan; no desire to listen to reason. Jack, who had a similar lack of desire when it came to risking his life fighting for the freedom of Lord Charles - or most other people if he was perfectly honest - found himself stuck in an unenviable position. He had nasty suspicion that he wasn't going to be fighting just anybody. Kate didn't want him to win; she wouldn't even be suggesting this if she thought he had a chance. On the other hand, of course, he was Captain Jack Harkness - adventurer, alleged hero, gallant space pirate extraordinaire... or so the story went. The only man to escape from the prison colony on Bratel IV. The only human to face the Gractel beast and survive; albeit entirely accidentally and through no real skill of his own. Ogrons had tried to kill him and failed. Well - one Ogron, admittedly drunk and none too cognisant. But it still made a good story. He smiled, and gave Kate a cheerfully confident nod.

"I'll fight."

"Jack, don't do this." Josiah was clearly neither cheerful nor confident. Jack put that down to the fact that the pirate captain had never seen him fight - that or the fact that Josiah had rather more sense than he did. He flashed his friend a grin guaranteed to dazzle even the most cynical pair of eyes, and took a few steps forward, effectively distancing himself from his companions.

"Who's the other guy?" She smiled immediately, and her eyes flashed bright enough to rival his dazzlinggrin - though with a light that was cold and cruel.

"Me." She reached out again, and again stroked the side of his face, the sparkle in her eyes both mocking andamused. "To the death, if you'd like."

"You?" She did look athletic, certainly; like Anne she gave the distinct impression that she could take care of herself. Jack had fought women before, in other times and on other worlds, and this eighteenth century society, that preferred its women in dresses and its men in uniform, was far, far from his own. It was not misplaced chivalry that made him hesitate now. Kate was dangerous, and he did not believe for one moment that she planned to fight fair. He had already realised, though, that he had very little choice. He nodded again.

"You're on."

"If that's an acceptance..."

"It is."

"Good." She smiled with obvious relish. "Then there's nothing more to be said, is there."

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