Twilight Poet: GAH! I have the flu… evil! EVIL I TELL YOU! And only 3 days till my Birthday. Wow, I'm gonna be 17 – lol, oooold.

Disclaimer: Even the HINT that TP owned any of this masterpiece, would make her faint from sheer joy and probably go into shock and the end result would be a coma. Since she's still writing this, she obviously owns nothing that important. Oh, and the song belongs to the comic genius, Monty Python

Chapter 14 – In which we yohoho with a bottle of rum!

Jack looked miserably back at the Pearl as he waded out onto the beach shaking off the ropes that bound his wrists, "That's the second time I've had to watch that man sail away with my ship."

Behind him Gin came running out of the clear water, a large array of various sea critters attached to her clothing, skin and hair, "AHH! For the love of all that's good and holy, get them off! GET THEM OFF!"

She ran around in rapid circles until Ruby managed to pull her to the ground and began to slowly remove the overly-friendly animals with her own personal, "ew! Ew! ErK! That one was still moving! ARGH IT TOUCHED ME!"

By the time Jack made his way over, Gin was lying in hysterics on her back, whimpering about crabs.

Jack looked at the pile of dying sea fauna and beamed, "Oh good. We won't have to worry 'bout food then. Just use Hawkins as a living Fishing rod!"

Gin glared at the pirate, "You want to EAT these?" she looked down at the crawly things, trying not to imagine them in her mouth… crunching… the little legs… chewing… the little eyes… squishing. Gin promptly ran behind a tree to throw up.

Jack laughed as Ruby went to hold Gin's hair back. It wasn't long before they were following the Captain across the island.

"It's amazing to think you were marooned on this island before," Ruby mused, scanning the land around her. "But I've heard the stories, and I don't think we'll be escaping the way YOU did last time." Jack raised an eyebrow at her. Ruby just smirked, "No back hair, you see."

Jack shrugged, "To what point and purpose anyway, young missy? The Black Pearl is gone and unless you have a rudder and a lot of sails hidden in that bodice – unlikely –"Ruby flushed as deep as her name, "young Mr. Turner will be dead long before you can reach him."

The girls followed him, Gin dawdling a distance behind, as Sparrow knocked on a tree trunk then took four steps and jumped up and down a few times.

Ruby pouted then smiled nervously, "But you're Captain Jack Sparrow. You vanished from under the eyes of seven agents of the East India Company. You sacked Nassau Port without even firing a shot. You're a famous pirate, you'll get us out of here, won't you?"

"Very trustin' aren't you lass?" Jack muttered

"I find it to an advantage to give some the benefit of the doubt," Ruby chuckled, "I've been told it's an admirable quality."

"Not if you go by the code."

"Well then it's a good thing I don't then, is it not?"

Jack tipped his hat to the girl, she had a point, "Well seeing as you're so trustin' and all I guess I should tell ya that last time…I was here a grand total of three days, all right? Last time," he opened a secret cellar door, "…the rumrunners used this island as a cache. Came by, and I was able to barter a passage off. From the looks of things, they've long been out of business. Probably…have your bloody friend Norrington to thank for that." He climbed out with two bottles of rum in his hands.

"Don't remind me," Ruby cringed. "So that's it then? We all give up and die now? What did you do for those three days, spent all of it sitting on a beach, drinking rum?" Unlike her movie counterpart, Ruby didn't find this ideal so repulsive.

Jack held out the bottles and shook them, "Welcome to the Caribbean, love."

Pushing one bottle into Ruby's hands, Jack made to head for the beach when he spotted Gin sitting by a tree drawing circles in the sand with her fingers. Scratching his chin and rolling his head, he finally waltzed over to the young pirate and tapped her on the head with the bottle. As she looked up he dropped it into her hands, "You need this more then I do. Drink down your woes."

The hundreds of 'drink wisely' ads that appear ever where in the modern world flashed through Gin's mind. Don't drink when you're depressed; Don't drink and drive; Alcohol is not the answer; Little bit over? You're a loser. "Thankyou," she nodded as she took the bottle.

By night fall Ruby, Gin and Jack where deliriously happy as they danced around the giant bomb fire, singing their tone-deaf hearts out. "We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs. Drink up me 'earties yo ho! Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me."

"Oh, I love this song!" Jack yelled.

"Really bad eggsshhh!" Gin slurred, falling over. Suddenly another tune popped into her head and she let it spill out of her mouth;

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could drink you under the table

David Hume could out consume Schopenhauer and Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine just as shloshed as Schlegel

There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya 'bout the rasing of… the… wrist

Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will

On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill

Plato, they say, could put it away

Half a crate of whiskey everyday!

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle. Hobbes was fond of his dram

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart, "I drink therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself, is particularly missed. A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed!

"And for that reason alone," Ruby joked, "you are going to hell."

Gin gave a lop-sided smile and took another swig.

"Ooh." Jack fell down beside her and Ruby collapsed in giggles next to him. Jack looked at them both, "When I get the Pearl back, I'm gonna teach it to the whole crew, and we'll sing it all the time!"

Ruby laughed, "And you'll be positively the most fearsome pirate in the Spanish Main!"

Jack turned his attention to her with a somewhat, dazed expression, "Not just the Spanish Main, love. The entire ocean. The entire wo'ld. Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails that's what a ship needs but what a ship is…what the Black Pearl really is…is freedom."

"Capt'in Jack Shhhparrow," Gin pouted, and tried to cough down the slur, "…it must be really terrible for you ta be trapped on this island."

"Oh, yes." Jack nodded, slowly snaking an arm around each of the girls, "But the company is infinitely better than last time, I think. The scenery has definitely improved."

Ruby gasped in mock shock, "Mr. Sparrow …I'm not entirely sure that I've had enough rum to allow that kind of talk."

"I know exactly what you mean, love." Jack curled his moustache and looked meaningfully at her.

"To freedom!" Gin cried, taking the line too far and gulping down the rest of the drink without waiting for the others. She finished and blinked for a moment, "Well that wasn't so-" THUD. "…zzzZZzz"

Jack shook his head and held up his bottle, "To the Black Pearl." He downed the rest of the bottle and collapsed next to Gin, out cold.

Ruby put her, still half full, rum bottle down and looked at her sleeping friends, "To freedom, the black pearl and one HELL of a hangover…"

Jack and Gin woke the next morning to the smell of smoke.

One look at the burning had Jack up and running towards the trees, "No! Not good! Stop! Not good! What are you doing?"

"Shh!" Gin hissed, hanging her head in her hands, "Not so loud..."

Jack ignored her, "You burned all the food, the shade! The rum!"

"Yes," Ruby snickered, "the rum is gone."

Jack looked on the verge of crying, "Why is the rum gone?"

This only made Ruby more amused, "One, that signal is over a thousand feet high. The entire Royal Navy is out looking for me, do you really think that there is even the slightest chance that they won't see it? And two... I think Gin liked it far too much."

"Argh! Never again!" sobbed the smaller pirate, curled up on the sand and scowling at the sun.

Jack blinked, "But why is the rum gone?"

"I'm sorry Jack," Ruby murmured, sitting down on the beach, "But I have to save Will. It may not be something you understand but just wait, Captain Sparrow, one day you'll know what it means to give up everything for another."

Jack gawped at Ruby, his hand halfway to his pistol, before growling and running back down the beach. He grabbed Gin and pulled her to her feet before dragging her over the dunes with him.

"Must've been terrible for you to be trapped here, Jack, must've been terrible for you."

"Shhh!" Gin groaned, "Too loud..."

Jack ignored her again, "WELL IT BLOODY IS NOW!"

"Shhhhhh! Please... shhh."

Sparrow froze halfway over another dune, spotting the Dauntless only on the other side of the island, "There'll be no living with her after this."

--On the ship--

If there was only that really annoyed Ruby (and there were very few things that really did) it was ignorant people, "But we've GOT to save Will!" she cried.

"No." Governor Swann muttered, "You're safe now. We will return to Port Royal immediately, not go gallivanting after pirates!"

"THEN WE CONDEMN HIM TO DEATH!"

The Governor shook his head, "The boy's fate is regrettable, but, then, so was his decision to engage in piracy."

"What an Old Fart" Gin cursed – the ocean air relieving her of most of her hangover

"To rescue me!" Ruby cried, "To prevent anything from happening to me."

Jack could see begging wasn't working so he tried a different approach, "If I may be so bold as to inject my professional opinion. The Pearl was listing near to scuppers after the battle. It's very unlikely she'll be able to make good time. Think about it. The Black Pearl . The last real pirate threat in the Caribbean , mate. How can you pass that up?"

Norrington sneered, "By remembering that I serve others, Mr Sparrow, not only myself."

"Captain," Gin grumbled, "Captain Sparrow." Jack raised an eye-brow at her

"Commodore, I beg you, please do this." Ruby sighed, she hated this bit, "For me… as a w-wedding gift." She chocked on the word

Governor Swann was too elated to notice, "Ruby! Are you accepting the Commodore's proposal?"

"I am."

Jack's face spread into a cheery grin, "A wedding! I love weddings…drinks all around!" Norrington glared at him and Jack deflated and held out his arms, "I know. 'Clap him in irons,' right?"

Gin couldn't take it anymore. Obviously it had stuffed up the storyline quite efficiently, but it still should have been notice at least by the man that was supposed to be her 'father'. "DAMN YOU!" she shrieked, leaping forward only to be held back by the Governor's bodyguards, "HELLO! Are you BLIND you cankerous old gumboot! Do you not even CARE! Can you not even SEE she is gone? Will I be the only one to mourn her death?"

Jack shrugged at the other soldiers around him, "Bi-polar?"

Governor Swann stood, towering over Gin as the guards forced her to her knees, "What is the meaning of this?"

Ruby, however, knew exactly what the little pirate was screaming over and felt herself frozen to the spot, "d-death...?"

Gin tore her glare from the Governor to stare in shock at her friend, "S-sarah, I'm sorry..." she stuttered, "I-I meant to tell you, b-but things got so crazy."

"You said she went home!" Ruby yelled

Gin hung her head, "Technically...she did, but that was only after Barbossa shot her-

"BARBOSSA SHOT HER!"

Gin cringed and only nodded, not trusting her voice to say anymore.

Swann, by this time, had caught on, "I thought I saw her get on board..." He shook his head, "...so Jade is dead.

"Went down bravely sir," Gin said with a forced smile, "didn't cry or anything..."

The Old man ignored her and stumbled across the deck, "I'll be in my chambers if anyone needs me."

The look on his face immediately made Gin regret her words. Ruby had also disappeared into the shadows somewhere.

Norrington however seemed more furious then usual. "Mr Sparrow, Miss Hawkins. You will accompany these fine men to the helm and provide us with the bearing to Isla de Muerta. You will then spend the rest of the voyage contemplating all possible meanings of the phrase "silent as the grave." Do I make myself clear?

Jack sighed, "Inescapably clear."

Gin stayed silent.

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Twilight Poet: blerk, still sick. Please let m be better soon – I have HUNDREDS of exams on the horizon –cries-