A chapter of total fluff! I thought they deserved a little break from angst (obviously more of that to come).

And to clarify, she's just looking at his scars, honestly!

Scars.

So many scars marred the skin of Billy's torso.

Some were faded thin slices like sword cuts. Some, across his back, looked like lash marks, showing rough and silver in stark contrast to his tan. Just above his hip there was a circular hollow, the edges uneven, undoubtedly from a gunshot, and above one collar bone was a fading purple scar, such a vicious, ugly gash it seemed impossible that he had survived the blow that caused it.

The sheer number of them spoke eloquently of the violent life he had led. Either that or ineptitude when it came to a fight but it seemed unlikely to her that this man, standing like Poseidon in the gently lapping waves, was unskilled in battle.

He was waiting, endlessly patient. The wooden spear in his hands, the tip sharpened to a point and hardened in the smouldering ashes of their fire, hung poised as he scanned the ocean floor, drops of water glittering on his muscular arms.

The sea breeze fluttered the pages of her book and Sarah reluctantly pulled her eyes away from the tableau below the rocky outcrop where she lay. She pressed her page down firmly as she tried to focus once more on her reading, one finger tracing the words. Her hat, tied securely against the wind coming in off the ocean, shaded her from the worst depredations of the rays of afternoon sun.

She peeked another look under the brim, cataloguing every mark and injury, and wondering what he had suffered, what he had endured. His concentration was such that she had plenty of opportunity to stare and when she looked down at her book again the words swam before her unfocused eyes.

Who had whipped him? How had he survived the wound to his shoulder? It looked more recent than most of the others, healed but still livid.

'What are you reading?' he said quietly.

Starting guiltily, she glanced up but his eyes were on the rippling water, watching for an unwary ocean dweller to approach his motionless form.

'Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night's Dream.'

'Will you read some to me?'

'Read to you?'

'Yeah, this gets boring after a while.'

She stifled a small smile. So, not endlessly patient after all.

'As you wish.'

She smoothed the page once more and then read aloud,

'O, I am out of breath, in this fond chase,

The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.

Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies;

For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.

How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:

If so, my eyes oftener wash'd than hers.

No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;

For beasts that meet me run away for fear:

Therefore no marvel though Demetrius

Do as a monster, fly my presence thus.

What wicked and dissembling glass of mine,

Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?

But who is here? Lysander on the ground;

Dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound,

Lysander, if you live, good sir awake.'

She turned the page but Billy spoke before she could draw a breath to continue.

'And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.

Transparent Helena, Nature shews her art,

That through thy bosom make me see thy heart.

Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word

Is that vile name to perish on my sword!'

She looked up from the page in astonishment. Billy was still staring intently at the water beneath him, tensed in anticipation. With a sudden stab and a splash he pounced. There was a momentary pause and then he lifted his spear, a large silver fish wriggling on its point. She had already put her book aside when he held the spear out to her and she took the fish from the end. She held it firmly, slippery and squirming, as it gaped and flailed its last and then placed it in the bucket alongside a harvest of shellfish. Rinsing her hands and drying them on her skirts she turned back to her book and Billy.

'I had not thought you would know Shakespeare so well,' she admitted.

'Not particularly surprising, you assumed I couldn't read not so long ago,' he said, leaning on his spear which was now dug into the soft sand at his feet.

'True,' she acknowledged. 'But still, I know of very few people who can quote more than a few lines of the famous speeches.'

'Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?'

'Precisely.'

He shrugged.

'I like words, and I have a good memory.'

'You really are the most puzzling dichotomy.'

'Because I am a pirate I can't like literature?'

'I wouldn't have imagined it before I met you. I would have assumed that you had other less…cultured interests. Certainly not that you would be organising a ship full of pirates in a grand performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream!'

'With the captain playing Oberon and the cabin boy as a very pretty Hermia?' he said with a laugh.

She started to giggle at the mental picture.

'Christ! I can only imagine what their response would have been if I'd tried!' he said. 'It would have been more trouble than it was worth to get them to think of anything other than drinking, fighting and fucking.'

'Ha, so even you admit that most pirates are not so well acquainted with Shakespeare's works.'

He laughed and grimaced wryly.

'Fine, your generalisations are not without foundation.'

She took his capitulation with a smug inclination of her head, 'So, my erudite pirate, what part would you play? Puck? Lysander?'

He pursed his lips in thought, 'Puck, he has the most interesting part.'

'I like Helena, she has the best speeches.'

'I had you pegged as a Helena.'

'Because of my steadfast devotion?'

'I was thinking more about the 'maypole' line!'

She spluttered with laughter.

'You're one to talk! Next to you I'm a dwarf, an acorn!

'Or would you be Titania?'

'A fairy queen? I like that.'

'My Oberon, what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour'd of an ass,' Billy quoted with a mischievous grin.

Sarah tried and failed to repress the rather disloyal laughter that welled up inside her. Still giggling, she hastily changed the subject.

'Will you show me how to spear fish? And make snares? I want to know how to make snares,' she said.

Billy straightened up and nodded.

'If you like. We can start now with the spear fishing. I'll show you the snares later.'

She swept enthusiastically to her feet and then looked down at her attire.

'Turn around,' she said. 'I don't want to get my skirts wet.'

Billy obediently turned his back and she quickly shucked her skirts and dropped down the side of the rock to the water below. When she waded to his side he turned and handed her the spear.

'You need patience for this,' he said.

'I can be patient.'

He positioned himself behind her.

'Find a comfortable stance and plant yourself, then don't move.' He reached over her shoulders as she adjusted her feet and moved her hands down the shaft of wood. 'Hold it like this, and then wait. When a fish comes within reach, thrust it quickly, straight down, pin it to the sand. No hesitation.'

She nodded her understanding and he withdrew his hands. Shadowy shapes undulated through the water, slightly out of reach of the spear's point. Curbing the urge to move towards them she held her ground, only slightly distracted by Billy's close presence at her back. A shimmering fish swam slowly towards her and she silently urged it on.

Just a little further.

She didn't move when it came within striking distance and the fish suddenly flicked its tail and retreated in a flurry of sand.

'Why did you let it go?' Billy said.

'It was a bit small.'

She could hear amusement in his voice when he said, 'Are you getting competitive, Miss Castle?'

'No, I just don't want to listen to you complain that you're still hungry later.'

'I never complain!'

'You do when you're hungry.'

Another fish approached, flowing across the sea floor, inspecting shells as it advanced. Her hands tensed on the spear and she raised it slightly.

'Remember, no hesitation. And don't stab your foot.'

She smiled, her eyes intent on the unsuspecting fish as it drew closer.

A little further now, come here.

The fish stopped, examining something near her feet and Sarah lunged, slamming the spear as hard as she could into its body. The sudden swirl of sand clouded the water and she lifted her catch triumphantly to the surface only to find the spear point inexplicably free of an impaled fish.

'Ah, missed,' Billy said.

She stared at the empty spear for a moment and then scanned the settling sea bed at her feet. She had indeed missed, the fish was gone. Disappointment rushed through her.

'They're quick little bastards,' Billy consoled her. She twisted towards him but as she did so a wave, larger than the previous ones, hit her square between her shoulder blades and she stumbled. He caught her almost absently, one hand on her waist, the other turning aside the murderous point of the spear she still clutched.

'Careful with that,' he admonished. She shot him her haughtiest look which he met with a broad smile, pulled herself from his grasp, planting her feet determinedly and raising her spear once more. He didn't say anything, just adjusted her hands fractionally and then climbed up the rock, water sluicing off him as he stood.

'Don't drip water on my book,' she said without looking up.

'Concentrate on catching my dinner,' he retorted.

'I am concentrating. It's your turn to read. Entertain me while I provide for you.'

He chuckled and there was a rustle as he picked up the book and began to read.

'Do not say so Lysander; say not so:

What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?

Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.

Content with Hermia! No; I do repent

The tedious minutes I with her have spent.

Not Hermia but Helena I love:

Who will not change a raven for a dove?

The will of man is by his reason sway'd;

And reason says you are the worthier maid.'

Billy paused. 'I never really understood the ending of this one. Is not Demetrius still under the enchantment when he marries Helena?'

'Yes, but it is said at the beginning that he was originally in love with Helena, so I think it could be construed as having his true love restored.'

He grunted, 'I suppose, just think it's a pretty raw deal for Helena.'

'Be careful what you wish for?' Sarah said and then she drove the spear once more into the water.

And missed again.

It took her three more tries but on the third she knew she had done it, the balance of the spear was off as she pulled it up. Billy put the book down as she turned to him with a crow of victory and displayed the neatly speared fish.

'Well done,' he said as he held out his hands to receive her catch and she couldn't help but smile with satisfaction. After he had dropped the fish into the bucket, she tossed the spear up to him and prepared to climb up the rock.

'Do you want a hand?'

She squinted up at him and nodded.

'Please.'

He held out a hand which she clasped and he started to haul her up. She was almost at the top when his grip loosened and she felt herself start to fall. Scrabbling at the rock with her free hand she tried to find a secure handhold but it was too late and she slipped back into the water with an ungainly splash. When she surfaced, soaked and spluttering, she looked up to find Billy looking down on her and grinning.

'You dropped me!' she said indignantly.

'Yeah, sorry about that.'

He didn't look in the slightest bit sorry, if anything he looked like he was struggling to hold in his laughter. She narrowed her eyes at him, silently promising vengeance. Waving off his proffered, and very suspect, offer of further help she waded to the surf and climbed the outcrop from the beach. She cast a quick assessing glance at the two fish in the bucket and looked up to find Billy watching her approach. She was modestly conscious of her damp shift and lack of skirts so she raised an eyebrow and made a twisting motion with her hand. He rolled his eyes but swung around and stared out to sea.

As she was picking up her skirts a wicked thought occurred to her and she set them carefully back down.

Treading very quietly she crept up behind Billy.

'I was think…' he started to say, turning towards her but before he could finish she gave him a hard shove. His eyes widened as he teetered and then, as he started to fall, one long arm grabbed her around the waist, dragging her with him. She gave a little scream as they plunged into the water, her limbs tangled with his. She wrenched herself from his strong grip, pushed him away and burst to the surface, standing in the chest high water. He stood too and his outraged scowl made her burst out laughing.

'You pushed me!' he said rubbing water from his eyes.

'You didn't expect some kind of retaliation?' she said, breathless with amusement.

'Didn't deserve more like, it was a genuine mistake, I lost my grip is all.'

She flicked water at his innocent expression and he responded in kind, making her shriek with laughter and race towards the shore as a barrage of seawater hit her. Standing on the sand she raised her hands in surrender.

'No more! Please!'

'I'll stop if you stop.'

'Fine, I'll stop.'

He strode out of the sea and as he neared he scooped up a handful of water and threw it at her. She danced away across the beach, wiping her face.

'You said you would stop!'

'I know, I really will this time. I promise.'

She snorted derisively, 'You've already proved yourself totally untrustworthy.'

'I am a pirate,' he said with a shrug.

'That you are, if not at all what I would have expected,' she said smiling at him.

He grinned back at her and in that moment Sarah felt strangely content.

I spent quite a long time pondering what she was reading and then realised that A Midsummer Night's Dream seemed vaguely relevant to the story, particularly the character of Helena. Also really wanted to have Billy say 'Methought I was enamour'd of an ass,' as a dig at Rogers.

The next chapter is almost finished, so hopefully not too long a wait for those of you that are interested.