He was on board The Black Pearl again, although this time it took him a while to recognise it, because the whole ship was lit up with beastly multi-coloured lights and there was some terrible pumping music emanating from, it appeared, the hold. Barbossa groaned- he knew where this was leading. He was reminded of his first mate days under Jack Sparrow, when he'd still loved Jack 'like a son'.

"Barbie!" Jack used to exclaim, about once a month.

"Yes, cap'n?" he'd wearily reply.

"Wouldn't yer say the stars are auspicious?" Jack would fling an arm up to the light-laden sky. "Wouldn't yer say the night is fresh? Well, wouldn't yer?" He'd grin at Barbossa, who'd have to stick to his half of the script and say yes, Jack had a weather eye for the weather.

"Yer know what that means, don't yer, Barbie?"

"Aye, Jack. Yer'll be wanting to have a dance competition." There was no-one on earth like Jack for dance competitions.

"Yes! And I choose you, mate, to be my partner!" Jack would half skip, half stagger over and fling his arms about Barbossa's shoulders. "Dun dun dah dun, dun dun dah dun," he muttered, doing a sort of impromptu tango on Barbossa's toes.

The dance competitions always met mixed response. Maximo hated them with a passion, as did the other thickset members of the crew. Men like Weatherby and Monk were shy and awkward about dancing, yet clearly wanted to be persuaded onto the floor, but it was the shy, awkward ones Jack invariably picked for the judge's panel. Ragetti, Pintel and their oddball friends loved the dance competitions and would leap into them with wild abandon, even without the rum which Jack was invariably soaked in.

Even during the curse years, particularly fine, clear nights would send Barbossa reeling off into terrible flashbacks. More than once in a dance Jack's wildly swinging hips would swing up into his groin, and leave him doubled over and clutching at Jack's arms for support. He was also often accused of not shaking his jelly convincingly enough. "At my age, Jack," he'd say soberly to the cha-cha-cha-ing maniac that was Jack Sparrow, "yer don't shake yer jelly because it's in danger of falling off."

"Don't make excuses!" Jack would snap, and bend over backwards. Barbossa would only just remember on time to catch him and swing him back upright.

So when his dream revealed a line-dancing Jack Sparrow, joined by Ragetti, Pintel, the gorgeous Miss Swann and her whelp fiancé Will Turner, the mute sailor Cotton, the miniature sailor Marty and Mr Joshamee 'Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Paint Thinner' Gibbs, he was depressed, but not surprised.

"Aha! Barbie!" yelled Jack, neatly executing a tricky do-si-do around Will Turner, who managed to kick his own ankle. "Come and join the fun!"

"Thanks, Jack, but I'd rather throw myself overboard," Barbossa mumbled.

"Don't be like that, mate," Jack chided, spinning Elizabeth (she was dancing with a ferocious expression of concentration on her adorable face). "After all, we're steering the ship towards the land of the dead for yer."

Barbossa gave him a look often seen on kittens- mad, huge-eyed astonishment- and trampled off towards the captain's cabin, to see if there were any maps. "Ah, yer've got two left feet anyway," Jack called after him, and tripped up Gibbs.

When he managed to open the door to the cabin, he discovered it was wallpapered with maps, and none of them appeared to show any recognisable landmass. Some of them were moving.

There were sheets of plain cream paper and a quill on the desk. He grabbed at the quill and tried to sketch some of the maps, but the quill pen refused to do what he wanted. It started writing eyeball-tingling symbols. Barbossa threw it down with a snort of disgust and staggered out again. The line dancers were gone, and with them the music and the lights.

There was a purple silk heap sitting in the middle of the deck, which resolved itself on closer inspection to be Lovehaste wearing the purple dress, although 'sitting in' would be a more appropriate verb. Barbossa vaguely saw she was breast-feeding her brat, and this alone was enough information. He lumbered away, and on a flash of sluggish inspiration climbed to the top of the crow's nest.

It seemed to take an age to reach the top. Barbossa could feel the ethereal wind pick up around him, and the air thin out. Latonya was already at the top, eating an apple. He took it off her but it turned to ash in his hands. Because he knew he was dreaming, he just scowled at it.

"Look at de porpoises," whispered Latonya. "Dey say dem be de souls of dead sailors, keeping the ship safe."

Barbossa peered down. The crow's nest was a lot higher than he remembered and he felt a stab of vertigo cut him briefly. "Those aren't porpoises, you wench!" he burst out. "They're sharks!"

He leapt off the crow's nest and floated down like a feather- much like a feather, because he occasionally thought, Oh come on come on fall faster.

He landed with a thud beside Lovehaste. "There are sharks in the water!" he gabbled at her. "Scores of 'em!"

"So?" she said, coldly. "They're in the water. We're on the boat. Deal with it."

Barbossa opened and closed his mouth. "Yes. But," he replied, lamely. He noticed for the first time she was feeding the baby not from her (shudder) breast, but from the new scar on her breastbone.

"Why- why are yer doing that?" he asked, woozily, pointing to the child. It turned and grinned at him- its gums were stained red with blood.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Come on," she said, nudging him. He sat down beside her cross-legged. "You don't think Tia Dalma would have given me the gift of new life just for a bit of measly information about you and Jack?"

"Um?" Barbossa replied.

"It takes a lot of power to keep someone alive once they've died once, you know," Lovehaste said reproachfully. She fingered the gunshot wound that wasn't hers. The baby screamed and she absentmindedly re-clamped its horrible mouth to the scar.

And she exploded.

Barbossa woke up with a disgusted, "Bleargh!" He reiterated himself once he saw what was on the wall beside the bed.

There was some form of map, badly drawn and not yet finished, on the wall. A cursory glance at his fingernails revealed that he had dragged his torn and calloused nails along the wall to draw it. In his sleep.

Odd.

This train of thought was violently derailed by Maximo bursting into the cabin like a well-muscled tornado.

"Enemy ship firin' on us, sah!" he shouted.

Barbossa sighed and swung himself out of bed. It was another day in the life of a pirate.