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Chapter Two: The Black Pearl Arrives

Captain Jack Sparrow was still laughing when the Black Pearl dropped anchor at Tortuga. It had been such pleasure to see the look on Captain Robert Gillette's face when he had sailed past the HMS Dauntless while they had but into a bay for repairs. It had been such a joy to watch the sailors and marines scramble to try and get the Dauntless ready to sail. Their guns got of one shot that landed very short. He had given old Norry a gallant bow and then ordered the sweeps to be hauled out. He had laughed the rest of the way to Tortuga and he was now ready for a cool rum and a warm whore. He and his crew had just deposited a good portion of their swag in the caverns of Isla de la Muerta, keeping plenty to spend on this two week vacation on Tortuga. They had been out to sea for almost three months and were ready for some leisure time.

With a grin Jack turned to his first mate Joshamee Gibbs, "The ship is yours, Mr. Gibbs. Half the crew on leave, the rest stays aboard the ship tonight. Tomorrow the next half will be off. Keep regular watches tonight. I'll be back on the morrow."

"Aye, Captain." Gibbs grinned, anticipating what he planned to do with his next night off. The sail of another ship caught his eye. "Captain, you may want to look at that ship. I've ne'er seen her before, but look at her sails, Jack"

Jack's eyes narrowed when he turned to look where Gibbs was pointing. One eyebrow lifted at the sight. The ship was a beauty. It reminded him of the HMS Interceptor he and young Will Turner had taken, er, borrowed the year before. There were a few major differences. The most notable were her sails. Like the Pearl's, this ship's sails were made of colored fabric. They were not quite black he decided as he studied them, more of a blue. They looked like the sea at night under a full moon. Even now they shimmered in the moon light. The next difference he noted was the ports in the sides for sweeps. They were very unusual on any ship, especially one of this size. What possible use its captain could have for those, he wondered.

With a half laugh he contemplated the ship. The captain probably didn't even know how to use them properly. Jack's eyes were drawn to the name plate on the ships stem. Midnight's Dove. Jack thought the ship was aptly named because she looked as though she could fly. He had fond memories of the Interceptor. She had given a good chase to the Pearl. She had not caught her, of course, but it was a good chase all the same. With that thought in mind, he decided that this ship was of no worry to him. He turned to Gibbs and waved his hands in an absent-minded gesture. "She's a beauty for sure. But she is no worry to us. The Pearl is still and always will be the fastest ship in these waters."

"Of course, Jack. I was just pointing out that she was new to these waters. It may pay to find out whose captain of her. Just for the sake of knowing, if you know what I mean. Never hurts to pad your luck."

"Truer words were never spoken, Gibbs. I'll see what news is floating around The Bride." Smythes may stiff you on liquor but his whores are mediocre and his information was always impeccable. He would make that his first stop of the night. Then he would look up Giselle or Scarlet. With that decision he walked to the side of the ship with his customary semi-drunken stagger. He climbed down into the ship's boat, settled himself into his seat and ordered the men to row for shore. This was going to be a good night. His lips curved. He could already feel it in his bones.

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Jack didn't even get to The Bride before he heard the tale. He laughed at the absurdity of it. No mere girl could have held a blade to Smythes' neck and walk away unharmed. Most women didn't even talk to him he was so formidable. A sharp word from him had convinced many a pirate to take his disagreements outside, lest Smythes feel the need to become involved. Jack pitied the man who had begun this rumor. When Smythes got his hand on him it would be around his neck.

With a chuckle, Jack gave the door of The Bride a good tug to open it. It almost knocked him on his ass when the door came off its hinges. Jack pushed the door off of him and stared down at his hands, had he really pulled that hard? Shaking his head he shrugged and lamented the fact that Smythes would charge him to reattach that door one more time.

The Bride was unusually quiet this night. It was still loud with laughter, music, the random shout of drunken happiness or anger, but there was a noticeable tension in the air. Smythes served drinks in short choppy actions and snapped at his barmaids when they came up to the bar with orders. It seems, Jack thought, that Ol' Smythes has already heard the rumors and was not happy about it.

Jack fixed a grin on his face and made his way towards the bar. He slapped down enough gold to buy a bottle of even Smythes' over priced best rum. "I'll take a bottle of rum and some information, Smythes."

Smythes glared at him and then at the gold. It irked him to think that he would have to leave half of it for Jack to pick back up, but the girl was sitting in her booth in the back like she had for the last week. Her customary bottle of whisky had barely had time to breath since she sat down. Maybe the information that Jack wanted would compensate for his loss of profit. "What is it you are wanting to know, exactly, Sparrow?"

Jack didn't blink an eye at his sour tone. He just grinned. "Just two bits of knowledge, the name of the fool who began this rumor of you being bested by a mere girl, so as I can avoid being in his company at the time of his death. Don't want to get blood on these new boots. And who the captain of that new ship at the docks, the Midnight's Dove, happens to be. I am sure that it would not trouble you to part with this information. The former will die soon anyway and the latter must be common knowledge."

"The name of the captain of the ship in question is Adelaide Withers." Smythes contemplated lying to Sparrow about the happenings of the night in question, but he could feel the girl's gaze on him even now. "As I have felt her blade meself, I would caution you to avoid the wench. She happens to be the person who fills the first bit of information you seek as well. Now leave half of that gold and be off. I do not wish to discuss my disgrace with the likes of you, Sparrow."

"Half the gold? Have you suffered some injury to the head, Smythes, so that you cannot count coins any longer? This is the set amount for a bottle. It has always been overpriced as you well know."

"Sparrow, take your gold, your rum and leave before I decide to take my anger at the chit out on you instead."

"Come now, Smythes. I was just inquiring after your health." Jacks voice was all warmth and friendly conversation. "There is no reason to embarrass yourself further by trying to go a round with me. Do you remember the last time we went a round with each other? If not, I would advise you to look down at your forearm to remind yourself."

Smythes didn't need to look at his arm to remember the jagged scar that marked his right arm from wrist to elbow. Jack's blade had caught him in their only fight that had come to physical blows. This was before Smythes had opened The Bride and was running a dive in Santo Domingo. He had been young enough to think that Jack's stagger meant he was to drunk to fight. He had been wrong. "No, Jack, I remember. But you are not a spry as you once were. And you never know I might get some of the sparrow luck instead of you."

Jack took this as it was meant, a peace offering. Smythes was back to bantering. Jack decided to let it go because he wanted to investigate the whereabouts of the Adelaide Withers. The name tugged at a memory in the back of his mind that he could not quite see clearly. "Far be it for me to turn down a bit of gold." Jack swept the gold back into his pocket and settled into one of the bar stools. "So, tell me Smythes. Where can I find this monster of a girl that managed to pull a blade on you and walk aways unscathed?"

"In the back booth, she's been there every night this week. Damn distracting if you ask me—and bad for business."

"How is having a woman in the bar bad for business?" Jack scoffed.

"Cause with her here I have to sell my spirits at a reasonable price. Otherwise I might have to be facing that blade again. And I have a feeling she knows how to use it."

Eager to get a look at the woman who could instill fear into Smythes, Jack turned in his stool to get a good view of the back booth. His eyes took a moment to focus. A group of over zealous drunks that was dancing around barely holding each other up were blocking his view. He waited until they made their way to either the door or to the floor. Then he saw her.

His heart almost stopped. It couldn't be. She was dead. He had held her has the blood flowed out of her body. He had cried, trying to stop the bleeding. But it had been no use. While the ship around him burned, he sat there holding a dying woman. Barely more than a boy, not yet a man, he had sat there holding his captain's wife as she died trying to protect him.

More than eighteen years had passed and he could still feel the warmth of her blood as her life slipped through his fingers. He could feel the rough hands that had pulled him from under her body and thrown him into the sea. By luck, he had grabbed a floating piece of debris and held on. Alone in an ocean of the dead or dying he had vowed revenge against the pirates had attacked his ship. By the same luck that had followed him through his life, a passing ship had pulled him out of the water. That had been where he had met Bootstrap Bill. With his help he had been quickly assimilated into the ragged crew of a rickety old merchant ship. The pay he got from their miserly cargo had barely paid for food until he could get a spot on another ship. Bootstrap had gone with him. The difference was that their second ship had not been a merchant ship. It had been a pirate one.

From then one Jack had been on the wrong side of the law. With Bootstrap's help he had quickly grown accustomed to viewing the world with a slightly bent sense of right and wrong. He had never forgotten that time in his life when he had been, for lack of a better word, normal. The captain and his wife had treated me more like their child then his own parents had. He had never forgotten his vow of revenge either.

At the tender age of eighteen, he and Bootstrap had gotten together a good enough crew to go after the pirates that had attacked his original ship. He still remembered the feeling it had given him to see the realization come to that bastard captain's eyes when Jack had whispered his reason for the attack in his ear. The shock had come first and then the fear. Then there was nothing because Jack plunged his sword into his blackheart all the way to the hilt. He had walked away without a second glance. His vengeance was complete and he needed to move on and make a new life.

That is how he had come into the ownership of the Black Pearl. He had kept it for nearly three years until that mutinous Barbosa had taken it from him. After chasing him for nearly ten years, he had gotten his ship back and now life was settling back into an enjoyable routine. That was until a ghost had walked out of his memories and sat in the back of a sleazy port tavern drinking straight whiskey. He would bet that it would be Irish whiskey too. If it was a ghost, she would stick to the habits she had in life.

Jack threw that thought out. It couldn't be a ghost. Not that it couldn't happen, it just didn't follow logic. Why would she appear after he had already avenged her death? Why would she wait until almost thirteen years had past before showing herself? The only explanation was that she was real.

And it meant that it was not the same woman. The similarities were striking. The girl was a dead ringer for Lady Bridget. So much that Jack was sure there was some relation. There was no way that those green eyes that were watching him from the shadows could be from a different family. But who…?

The only way to find out, Jack decided, was to ask. With no comment to Smythes he snagged his bottle of rum and swaggered toward the booth in the back. He practically fell into the bench opposite hers. Without a word he took a long swig from his bottle. He would wait to hear her speak before he started questioning her.

She didn't say a thing. Quietly sipping from her whiskey bottle, Adelaide sized up the man who had sat himself down at her table. She knew who he was. The tattoo she had seen when he paid for his drink had confirmed her suspicions. Captain Jack Sparrow had taken the courtesy to present himself to her with little effort on her part. Now she could study her adversary at her leisure.

Her stare was slightly unnerving, Jack thought, like she had found something she didn't care for suddenly in front of her and was trying to think of the best way to dispose of it. He didn't care for that. Determined to charm some information out of her, he aimed his most disarming smile at her. His gold teeth glinted in the firelight.

Adelaide decided he looked like an over-grown twelve year old with a wig and goatee glued on. His eyes betrayed his age but that was all. When he grinned at her she was almost distracted enough to smile back. Until she noticed that it didn't reach his eyes. They stayed reserved and curious. Hers narrowed. How was it that this man was, by the accounts of many, the best pirate in history?

He wasn't much to look at. He couldn't have been much taller then five eleven, might have weighted a hundred and sixty pounds soaking wet. He had obviously bathed recently, that was a plus, but his clothes were worn and tattered. He wasn't poor; his money pouch had jingled loudly when he settled himself into his seat. His hair was long and formed into small braids with strands of beads randomly mixed in. His eyes were different though. Dark chocolate brown, lined in koi like hers, they pierced her. Causing her to wish she could look away. He looked at her as if she was a person he knew well but was still a mystery to him. She raised one eyebrow at him. When he still did not speak, she decided to break her silence. First she took another sip of whiskey.

"I don't remember inviting you to join me."

Her voice poured out; smooth with a hard bite, like the whiskey she was drinking. There was no doubt left in Jack's mind this girl was somehow closely related to Lady Bridget. Jack had been mistaken as to her age. He had guessed her to be barely twenty at first glance. Now looking into her eyes he knew she was closer to his age. Probably not yet thirty though. In these times, that could be considered old for a woman, but Jack guessed that she had a lot of life left in her.

"I don't remember waiting for an invitation," Jack replied.

"Your friend Smythes at the bar might warn you that I don't care to be offended. You would do well to take heed of my warning and leave." She placed her elbows on the table between them and leaned her chin against her fists. "I would hate to ruin another man's reputation all in one visit."

"Darling, it would take more than a small slip of a woman to ruin my reputation. It is a rather eccentric one although. I am sure you have heard of me; I am Captain Jack Sparrow after all. I am things legends are made of."

"Your name has come up in conversation, however briefly. Didn't you have a noose around your neck less than a year ago?"

"Ahh, so you have heard of me. Now what about you, I would have thought that a woman captain, who was actually capable of handling a man like Smythe and controlling a beauty of a ship like the Midnight's Dove, would have a reputation significant enough to reach even my ears."

"The Caribbean is not my normal hunting ground."

"Where would your customary residence be, luv?"

"Eastern coast of Ireland, the west coast of Wales, and the southwest portion of Scotland, primarily."

"What, here on a holiday?"

"Not exactly, I am looking to expand my hunting grounds. I think the Midnight's Dove and I will settle into our rightful place in the Caribbean. I have to say I enjoy the weather here a site more then in Wales."

"Rightful place, eh?"

"Yes."

"And what place would that be, I wonder?"

"Well, Jack, I am glad you asked," Adelaide lowered her voice and leaned in closer. Jack leaned in as well, anticipating this bit of information. He was surprised she had begun to talk this freely. Nothing prepared him for her next statement.

"Why, Jack, dear, yours of course."

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I want to thank my first reviewer: jennifer123 You are a darling and I thank you for your support. I hope that Jack lives up to your expectations. I also hope that you think that Adelaide is an equal match for Jack, well; we'll see where they take us.

I hope I have more readers then just jennifer123 because having only one reader is almost pathetic.