Elizabeth looked from Jack to Barbossa and back again. "This is so improper there's not even anything to say. How are we supposed to manage this?"

Barbossa just shrugged at her. He had gotten possession of himself enough to let go of his knife, but that was as far as he was going to go towards being helpful. He stood off to the side to let the others figure it out.

Jack decided to make the best of the situation. "How about he sleeps on the floor, and you and I can share the bed."

"What? N-No!" Elizabeth stuttered.

Ever the reasonable one, Jack made a second offer: "All right, then, age before beauty - he can have the bed, and you and I will take the floor."

She crossed her arms. "I don't think so, Jack. The two of you can be gentlemen and share the floor, and let me sleep in the bed. Alone."

"Oh, but then I don't get anything nice," Jack complained. Barbossa attempted to silence him with a glare, but it had the opposite effect. "You know, I think he could do with a few minutes to feel better," Jack observed. "Better in this case meaning: less... dragonlike. Sit down, mate."

They all settled down on the floor and passed around a bottle of a substance that was either weak rum or very bad wine.

First Elizabeth poured out the story of the Deception game. She apologized again and again for losing the first round, and Barbossa was not in a generous enough mood to assure her that it had not been her fault. So she started apologizing to Jack instead, for hitting him in the nose on Beckett's ship, and felt better when he, at least, was responsive. "No harm done, love," he said, telling the truth for a change. She hadn't even broken it. Perhaps he would have to teach her how to do it better next time? "Out of curiosity... did you have any idea what I was doing?"

"No. No idea," she admitted. "You can be a lunatic sometimes, Jack."

"Sometimes?" Barbossa muttered. "And the other times, he's the very soul of reason."

"Of course," Jack agreed, "Not to mention her inspiration and her better half, a dashing and infinitely intelligent-"

"Oh, very funny."

After that, civilized conversation reigned. Jack let it go on for a bit, because he knew his friends needed to thaw out after their harrowing near-un-death experience, but soon he was just too bored and decided to make things more interesting. He stood up, stretched out his back, and pulled his shirt over his head.

"What kind of foolishness be this?" demanded Barbossa.

Jack acted surprised by his surprise. "Oh, I always sleep naked," he explained.

Elizabeth threw a shoe at him lazily. "Put it back on, Jack, it's hard enough already." It wasn't until both pirates looked at her in surprise that she backtracked and realized what she had just said. Oh. Whoops.

It was funny enough to interrupt Barbossa' brooding. "And here I thought ye immune to the force of other people's... personality," he teased.

She tossed her hair back haughtily. "I am."

"Is that so." His posture was completely relaxed but his stare intense.

A strange thing happened then: for no apparent reason, Elizabeth blushed crimson and dropped her eyes to the ground. Hoping Barbossa hadn't noticed, she looked back at him, and discovered that not only had he marked her momentary disturbance, he also seemed to be aware of the outlandish and totally unwelcome thoughts that had just sped through her mind. But there was no way he could know! "Ridiculous," she said aloud, and stood up.

He stood too, chuckling when she edged away. "Tables have turned, I see." He backed her all the way across the room with slow, measured steps. "We'll have to marry you off as soon as possible," he whispered. "Before... someone... persuades... you." He was so close that she could feel his breath on her face.

"S-Stop it." Paralyzed by a feeling that was very like fear but wasn't, Elizabeth kept going until she bumped into the wall behind her. When even that collision was not enough to help her move, Barbossa stepped away a little and held his arm out in a mocking after you, ma'am gesture.

She took the hint and fled to the far side of the little cabin, watching the two pirates, feeling very much like a lion trainer who had accidentally locked herself in the cage. Her heart was beating in her throat.

And then Jack shattered all the tension in the room with one well-placed remark. "Or, I could always take the floor, and leave you two the bed," he suggested, examining his fingernails.

Elizabeth laughed nervously. "That's not funny. Everybody go away and leave me alone." She decided to sleep fully dressed that night, although she knew both of them had at one time or another served her as a pillow while she was en chemise. Why take chances, she thought. Neither pirate mentioned her sudden excess of modesty.

They fought good-naturedly over floor space and then for a while it was quiet.

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But Jack still didn't like the idea of being asleep on this ship, where God only knew what happened to you the minute you closed your eyes, so he looked for a way to drum up some more excitement.

"This is cozy. Almost reminds you of that night we spent in Tortuga that time, Barbossa, eh?"

Barbossa growled deep in his throat. "Ever bring that up again, Jack Sparrow, and I'll kill you."

Elizabeth sat up in bed, not feeling much like sleeping. "Bring what up?"

"Ooh, you've never heard the story!" Jack sat up too. "It's not really a story for ladies' ears, you know. But for you…Lizzie…I'll make an exception." He seemed delighted at the chance to tell. He started off, ignoring the continuous stream of Barbossa's threats and warnings. "Once upon a time, a young and starry-eyed Jack Sparrow admitted to his dear old captain that he'd never, ahem, made full use of the most well-known facilities of Tortuga, shall we say, and in fact had never known a wench at all. So, his heart full of goodwill and pity for the poor lad, said captain decided to take him out for a night on the town. And what a night it was!"

"Enough, Jack," Barbossa barked.

"It's still a bit of a touchy subject with him," Jack observed, as though Barbossa weren't even in the room. "But anyway, the brave pair went out and proceeded to overindulge in drink - I mean really overindulge, love, to the point of we had very little idea what went on from there. Well. One member of the pair remembers feeling so shy about his first time - and so unable to walk on his own, actually - that he entreated the other member to accompany him to the room with his girl." His tone dropped a little. "Well. This individual also thinks he remembers-"

"Enough, Jack!" Barbossa repeated. He didn't sit up or take his eyes off the ceiling. Perhaps Jack would shut up if the story were spoiled by the punch line arriving too soon: "I woke up the next morning," he snapped, "with no idea where me clothes were, in a bed, alone, with Jack. Whose clothes were also nowhere to be found. And there you have it."

Jack's eyes sparkled. "I swear there was a girl, mate." Elizabeth thought his voice had never sounded so deep or so enticing. She half-wished he would talk about something else, and half-wished he would keep to the subject of girls forever. "She must have woke up and left before we did. I swear."

Barbossa muttered something under his breath but Elizabeth couldn't quite catch it.

"Sounds like a wonderful time." She meant it to be sarcastic but wasn't sure she managed. "Yo ho and all that. A pirate's life for me."

Barbossa refrained from making any comments, so Jack elbowed him in the ribs and in a loud stage whisper assured him, "I'll say it for you." He raised his voice and gave a passable imitation of Barbossa's gutteral lilt. "Don't tempt us, miss."

Barbossa reached for the booze bottle and slammed it hard into Jack's stomach. Jack exaggerated the retching noise and curled up on his side.

"You're like little children," Elizabeth laughed. "My goodness! Go to sleep."

But she hoped with all her heart that they would not - she was having more fun than she could remember in a long time.

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They went to sleep then, but two hours later Jack awoke. He had been having a nightmare about drowning, and when he tore himself out of it and opened his eyes, he found that he was, in fact, actually drowning. The floor was a good six inches deep in water, and Jack was soaked completely through.

He jumped up. Barbossa was awake already, standing, leaning against a wall. "In a minute I was going to have to dive in there and pull you out."

"You've got p-plenty of p-practice with that," Jack noted, teeth chattering. He took off his dripping shirt and tried to use it to towel himself off with. It didn't work. He was freezing and wet and had had just about one too many nights of sleep deprivation. "That's it – she's sh-sh-sharing the bed."

He sat back down in the water and struggled out of his boots. And then stood up and struggled out of his pants. "I'm f-freezing, mate."

Barbossa would have made Jack put the pants back on, except that he was too busy squinting at what Jack wore beneath. "Aren't those supposed to be for women?"

"Thanks kindly, but I don't n-n-need your opinion of me undergarments," Jack growled. He wrung out his hair. "Now, if you want to come in too, to sh-shelter the f-fragile M-M-Miss Elizabeth from big bad Jack S-Sparrow, you're welcome." He nudged Elizabeth. "'ey, you, shove over."

She mumbled sleepily and didn't move much. Barbossa pushed mostly-naked Jack out of the way, deciding that that was not a sight Elizabeth needed to wake up to. He sat down on the bed and kicked off his wet boots. He leaned against the wall in the corner, and Jack folded Elizabeth up and heaved her over to him. Without waking her all the way, they curled her up across the foot of the bed with her head in Barbossa's lap. Jack grinned. Too late Barbossa realized that this arrangement meant he would be sitting up the whole night, once again the sleepless victim of bed usurpation.

Jack thus had possession of nearly the entire mattress. Unfortunately there was an old and grumpy male pirate between him and Elizabeth, but it would have to do. He fluffed his pillow, pulled the blanket over himself, and fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

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The first strange discovery Elizabeth made when she woke up was that she was squashed against the wall, and her pillow had been replaced with a pirate.

Next, she noticed that someone's cold feet had wormed their way under her shirt and were currently leaching the warmth from her stomach.

When she looked to see whom the cold feet belonged to, she made the most disturbing discovery yet. "Augh!" She shut her eyes tight. The feet were Jack's. Jack was naked.

She stole another look. All right, he was almost naked.

She never found out whether she would have gotten up or stayed to stare for a while - her pillow made the decision for her.

"Morning."

Elizabeth rolled over and looked up. "Morning. What's he doing in my bed? Come to think of it, what are you?"

"The floor flooded."

"Ah." She tried to keep a straight face, but after the Tortuga story it wasn't easy. "And dare I ask why Jack was sleeping next to you with no clothes on?"

"You shouldn't dare, but apparently you do." He rolled his eyes. "Jack's clothes got wet and he was cold."

"Or so he told you."

"Or so he told me," Barbossa agreed. "It's hard to say how deep Jack's strange fascinations really run."

"Mmm." She hated to spoil the mood – she was comfortable and he was remarkably friendly for having spent a night as a pillow, but it had to be said. "Speaking of strange fascinations, I should warn you: for some reason, Lord Beckett's developed one for you."

"Beckett? For me?"

"Yes. He got the idea from somewhere that…well, I don't really know what he thinks, but's obsessed with you." Elizabeth grimaced. "He questioned me rather intensely about you when we were alone together."

"Are you all right?"

Trust a pirate to leap to the worst possible conclusions. "No, not like that, he didn't torture me. Just sat me down and questioned me intensely," she clarified. "I wouldn't tell him anything. It's none of his business where I learned to fight and swear."

"Well, he can add me to his list of enemies, then," Barbossa said with a dark smile. "If Davy doesn't get him, I will."

Elizabeth giggled. "Poor Lord Beckett."

"Aye."

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Will closed up the spyglass and started pacing. He knew that ship. Norrington's piratehunting ship. Likely Norrington was on it. Will had a plan, but it wouldn't work if Norrington realized exactly who he was dealing with. "Gibbs!" Will ripped off his shirt and mussed his hair. "Go find where Jack keeps all that paint for his face. And get me a hat - a big one."

"Aye cap'n."

Will very nearly corrected him; two captains at a time was more than enough for this crazy ship. But he liked the sound of it, and anyway there were more important things to attend to. He seized another pirate - one whose name he hadn't bothered to learn, some captain - and ordered him to bring up the captives they had taken from Port Royal.

Will decided he would have more credibility with the prisoners if he addressed them before he put on his war paint. "Ladies and gentlemen, listen carefully." He sounded so much more civilized than the crude and filthy pirates who had guarded them thus far, that the captives all got quiet for him at once.

"I'm going to need volunteers," Will said, "Women and children if possible. They must be able to swim."

"Swim?" one of the little boys echoed. "Are you going to throw us overboard?"

"Er, actually...I mean...yes," Will admitted.

The boy looked delighted. "Will we get to walk the plank?"

Will scooped him up and spun him around. "Of course!" He mirrored the child's enthusiasm. "Won't that be fun?"

A woman pushed through the pirates on deck and threw herself at him. "You put down my son! Put him down!"

Will held her off with one arm and set the boy down with the other. "Madam, please, I'm not going to hurt your son. We just need something to distract the other ship with. If they're busy fishing civilians out of the water, then the battle will be much shorter and less bloody, for all of us."

"And what if they don't fish us out of the water?" another prisoner called. "Then what? We drown?"

Will held up his hands for quiet. "From what I know of Norrington, he will not be able to stand by and let a pack of innocent people die." He paused. "And even if he could, I cannot. Listen to me: you have my word that if that ship does not begin saving you as soon as they see you, I will lower boats and we will do it ourselves."

"But that would cost you the battle," scoffed the plank enthusiast's mother.

"Yes," Will agreed simply. "This is a risk. I'm gambling with our lives. I won't gamble with yours." He looked to the crowd. "Now: do I have any volunteers, or not?"

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After he had selected enough plank-walkers and explained their role to them, Will turned his attention to his ragtag crew. Some of them were bums fresh off the streets of Port Royal, some had been hired for the trip to World's End and still had most of their limbs, others had been recruited by Jack after that incident with the Aztec curse, and still others were veterans from Barbossa's ten-year graveyard shift.

He closed his eyes. "Were any of you there when Barbossa took the Interceptor?"

He heard a reassuring number of aye's and continued. "Any of the gunners?"

Two pirates said yes. Will opened his eyes and reminded them, "You demasted her on your first try." He took a deep breath. "Is that a feat you can perform again?"

The two of them looked at each other and grinned. "Ten years of practice."

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Will made a model to make sure he was explaining himself. "That shoe...that be us?" Gibbs scratched his head.

"Yes. We're going to bring her about, and come in at an angle - this way, see?"

"That other shoe...that be them?"

"Yes." Will moved the shoes a little. "No gunfight, is that clear? We must not get in the way of her cannons."

"But Will, we could take her," Gibbs insisted.

"Not without risking damage to the Pearl." Will started painting up his face like a savage while he talked - it would not do to have Norrington recognize him; they knew each other too well. Norrington would know that with Will in charge, the pirates had no intention of letting the prisoners drown, and would probably not waste his time rescuing them.

"Aside from what Jack would say to me if I hurt his darling," Will explained, "the problem is we'll soon end up fighting whatever Beckett sends after us...which could include the Flying Dutchman, and therefore possibly even the you-know-what. So we have to be in good condition to make for the shallows as fast as possible - we can't start out with putting holes in our ship already."

Gibbs nodded. "I'll only put us in harm's way so far as we need to to get off that one little volley."

"Exactly. Once she's demasted..."

"Sitting duck." Gibbs took a drink. "I like it."

He still didn't get it. "No, even better," Will explained. "She's not just a sitting duck, she's a crippled duck. Once their ship's not fit to sail home, they can't damage ours - they need it. Norrington knows his only chance will be to fight us hand to hand and win the Pearl for himself."

Now he got it. Gibbs laughed raucously and slapped Will on the back. "Take the Pearl for himself? Take her from the hands of pirates? That's a good one. Over our dead bodies, boy."

"Yes." Will settled a big feathered hat on his head, sure that Norrington would never recognize him from a distance. "That's what he's hoping."

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TBC.

Oh man, I'm excited for this. I don't know how the battle turns out yet. I guess I'll just start writing and whatever happens, happens.