Latonya, with her usual apathy and unthinking amiability, had locked the fingerless boatswain in the cells with a piece of bread and a tin cup of watered-down rum, instead of just pushing his face through the back of his head, as Barbossa would personally have done. He sent Latonya to help sort through the amassed loot and Lovehaste off to his cabin to take a look at the map, so he could kill the man without their protesting.

When he'd done with this small, annoying but necessary chore, he went to his cabin.

He didn't feel bad, as such, for almost killing Lovehaste. He'd done it before, after all, and doubtless, if it was useful to him, he'd to it again. But for some reason the sensation of Lovehaste's pathetic digits fluttering uselessly in his hands had stirred up two uncomfortable memories. Unsurprisingly, given that they were uncomfortable memories, one of them involved Jack.

Memory one was in his second year aboard The Black Pearl, when he'd slowly switched from adoring Jack to passionately hating his weasel guts. He was about halfway through this transformation (it was their second July together) when this particular memory took place.

They were docking at Tortuga at the time, and the heat made the air thick with stenches and lazy, fat, whining flies. Jack had come charging into his room from the knocking shop next door, quite white-faced beneath the dirt.

"Did she charge extra for the whip?" Barbossa had asked, all mock-sympathy.

Jack shook his head violently, and opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. He started to do a strange, slow dance. Barbossa realised he was acting out what had happened, evidently too horrified to talk.

Jack made some quite graphic movements with his hands. "She did WHAT?" Barbossa burst out, incredulous, and had gone to look out of the window to the establishment. A few busty women were hanging around outside in their corsets and petticoats. There were some musical yowls from an upstairs window. It looked like any normal cathouse to him.

"Yer've got to help me get rid of these fangirls, Barbie," Jack had said, weakly, and fallen over on Barbossa's bed. "They just don't take, ARRGHNOOOGETAWAY for an answer."

"Can't yer break their legs, so they don't follow yer?" Barbossa replied, drily.

Jack turned a helpless look on him. "Can't yer protect yer cap'n?" he'd asked. Quite suddenly, Barbossa had felt the old love flooding back and he dearly wanted to smash the fangirls heads into walls. He'd reached out to take Jack's head between his hands and say murmured, comforting things, but suddenly Jack had sprung up.

"I know!" he'd said. "I'll sing to them! For some reason I can't fathom at all that makes everyone run a mile!"

He'd rushed out, leaving Barbossa with his arms outstretched and a sensation of overwhelming sheepishness in his heart.

Memory two vaguely began when he'd been saying his goodbyes to Lovehaste after one of his visits. They were facing each other at the docks, she snivelling, he impatiently waiting for her to get her goodbye over with. He'd heard some dock workers whistling a simple, rather sad tune and had remarked (over her hiccuping, theatrical sobs) that it was a pretty little piece. Music was something he truly came to love during the curse years; hearing was one of the only two remaining senses he could still derive pleasure from.

Some months later he'd gone to visit Lovehaste when she was living on a little chain of interconnecting islands with some philosophic poets-and-dreamers types who were trying to build themselves a Eutopia. It was during the years of the curse. She had been dressed in a very disturbing get-up of woven palm leaves and a coconut, split in two, to cover up pieces of her that didn't actually exist. Her monobrow had also grown out of control- Barbossa suspected she'd tried to braid it. He remembered thinking, quite distinctly, Amazing. The curse specifies 'feels nothing' yet I swear that was a cold sweat I just broke out in.

Lovehaste had greeted him in a misty, faraway voice that suggested she was on a purple passage in whatever story she thought she lived in. He'd had some harmless fun insulting her directly, just to listen to the rambling, distant answers she gave him, plagiarised from whatever texts her dreamer friends had brought with them to their Eutopia. (Evidently all Eutopians had to be well-read on literature of the world they'd shunned. He'd never understood that.)

What had surprised him was that Lovehaste had managed to catch a musician, and had poked him into playing Barbossa something on his lute by moonlight. (The poor devil had very nearly passed out with terror.) It was the same tune. He was quite impressed with her, but the knowledge that she'd faithfully retained the tune worried him to the quick.

It was these memories that occupied him when he stepped into his cabin. The brat was on his desk, squalling softly. When it saw him, it made the wise decision of shutting up.

Lovehaste was kneeling on his rumpled, distasteful bed, quill and paper in hand, frowning at the map. Her single brow crowded her small eyes most threateningly.

"Got me a map yet?" he asked her. She spun around, startled.

"What? No. It's- it's very complicated, and you haven't completed it," she said, breathing unevenly, and returned to her task. Her ears, rather obvious beneath her thin hair, glowed red. "I- er, I may take longer than anticipated..."

"Fine." Barbossa sat down and swung his legs onto the desk. The brat rolled its eyes towards his boots with an expression of bemusement.

Lovehaste cleared her throat daintily. Barbossa chewed the inside of his cheek to stop himself from suddenly leaping up, seizing a plunger from thin air and clearing her throat for her. He had a bad feeling she was going to ask about what had happened earlier.

"We should make it to Tia Dalma's in two days, three on the outside," he pre-emptively interrupted her. He stared at the thing in swaddling. What was she feeding it? Presumably she was feeding it. It looked alive and nourished enough, although to be fair Barbossa's experience of babies was limited to having been one.

"Mm," Lovehaste said. The frown lines on her forehead were exactly parallel to her brow. Barbossa found this very distracting and mentally applied wet cement to her face.

"It's a boy child, isn't it?" he asked, suddenly.

Lovehaste froze. "Yes," she said, guardedly.

Barbossa's mind was plummeting down passageways he didn't want it to go. He tried to restrain it, but the tug of mental gravity was inexorable. "What exactly did Tia Dalma do to, um, give yer the child?"

"Er," Lovehaste muttered. "There was... that is, the father..."

Oh God, thought Barbossa. Yer didn't. I mean, I suppose yer must have done at some point in yer life but... oh no. Please don't tell me about it. Please don't say Tia Dalma was present. Please, PLEASE don't use the phrase 'engaged in intercourse'...

"The father," repeated Lovehaste, like a hangman reading out a list of crimes. "Er. He- that is, the, um, conception, was a purely medical procedure..."

Argh. Argh. Argh. Shoot me now. "Oh aye?" Although I suppose it's better than her telling me about a night of passion. Just about.

"Yes. Tia Dalma... erm. I believe some of her rather organic brand of magic was involved..."

Quick. Change the subject. "Aye?" QUICK! "So, what's the brat, I mean child, called?"

Lovehaste was an unnatural shade of red. "I, um, named him for his father."

"So his name is...?"

"Hector."

Barbossa went perfectly still for either a few seconds or a year. He was painfully aware he was doing his almighty best not to look at the child.

Then, with great presence of mind, he threw the inkwell at Lovehaste's head.