A/N: See the end of the chapter for answers to your comments!

Chapter 4

Reunion

It took them four days to get to Greece. By then Jim and Sinbad had managed to argue almost about everything (seriously, who argued over pickled eggs?), and the crew was completely fed up with their fights. It was a relief for everyone when they finally saw the land.

To be able to use the harbor, Kida and Sinbad's crew had had to disguise their ships to look like ordinary merchant ships. Finding their own place to anchor their ships would have been too troublesome. It was hard to change the way they looked and acted, though, so they needed to be careful not to draw any unnecessary attention to themselves.

"Alright, gentlemen, we're finally here," Sinbad announced, and the crew could barely contain their excitement. "Luca and Jed, you'll stay here to look after the ship." The said men groaned disappointedly, but agreed with an 'aye, aye, Captain'.

The rest of the crew landed with Sinbad. Jim followed the busy harbor with his eyes, still amazed by everything. There was so much happening at the same time: sailors were loading their ships, people were selling fresh fish and yelling about how their prices and quality were the best, some were playing different kinds of instruments, and others were playing card games on heavy-looking boxes, trying to pass time. He loved being a sailor.

"Jim and I are going to search for information. The rest of you can buy us food and supplies. And by buying I mean buying, not stealing," Sinbad cleared. "We don't want to get in trouble yet." The men nodded, starting to walk in different directions. The captain turned to Jim.

"Why do I have to come with you?" Jim sighed.

"I thought it was obvious. I want to keep an eye on you," the captain answered with a grin. "And before you try to run away: don't. I'm much faster than you think."

"Right," the man mumbled with a dark cloud over his head. "Besides, I thought you knew where the half of the sphere was located?"

"I do know where it is. I just don't know how to get there. It's a place where the living do not usually want to enter."

That sounded dangerous. Like, really dangerous. What the hell were pirates thinking? Jim hoped Sinbad didn't mean what he thought he meant.

"Not without me, gentlemen," a familiar voice then called behind them. It was Kida, who had caught up with them and was wearing a long blue tunic over her usual outfit to blend in. Well, her aura still gave off some kind of pirate vibes, but otherwise she was okay.

"I almost forgot," Sinbad mumbled, crossing his arms. He had been hoping they would have managed to slip away without Kida noticing them. He was surprised to see her alone, though. "Where are your men?"

Kida raised her eyebrows challengingly. "Do I look like I need a man?"

She, indeed, did not look like she needed a man. Sinbad had never seen her fighting – and he would rather keep it that way – but he was pretty sure there was a weapon or two hidden somewhere under the tunic. And now that Sinbad thought about it, weren't her golden earrings a little bit too sharp to be ordinary earrings?

"Guess that settles it then," she continued when neither Sinbad nor Jim dared to say anything. "So, what exactly is this place where 'the living do not usually want to enter'?"

Sinbad cleared his throat. "The Underworld."

Jim stared at him like he had grown two heads. On the other hand, he wasn't really surprised. These were pirates he was talking about. "Of course it is. Because risking your life isn't enough, you just have to go and greet the Death literally."

Even though his words were full of sarcasm, somewhere deep inside him a small desire for adventures raised its head again in a long time. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but the past two years had been incredibly boring. Yes, his life had been stable, but was that really what made him happy?

"Doesn't sound too bad. At least there's only one god we have to deal with," Kida nodded. Jim wasn't sure if she was joking or not.

"For once we're on the same page!" Sinbad laughed. "The only problem now is how we're going to enter the Underworld without actually, you know, dying. There are some legends of people doing that, but how, that I don't know. And that's what we're going to find out."

"To the pub?" Kida asked. People always became conveniently talkative when they had had something to drink.

"To the pub."

The first pub they went to was full of laughing, talking, and most importantly, drinking sailors. It wasn't a place to get information from others, however, because the pub had an honest atmosphere around it. Entering the Underworld without dying wasn't really a topic which these kinds of sailors would know about. The pub was also too loud, and Jim had to yell his suggestion of moving onto the next pub.

It wasn't until the third one that they felt like they had come to the right place. The pub was located on a side alley far from the crowds, and it looked like it had been standing on the same spot for a few centuries without any repairs. Inside of it was dark, and it smelled like mold, cigarettes and rum mixed together. A typical place for people whose conversations needed a place somewhere more private, Jim thought amusedly.

There were only a few people scattered around here and there, and Jim and Sinbad decided to split up with Kida since a group of three would only raise suspicion.

Kida walked to the bar counter and sat on the wooden stool, ordering a glass of whiskey. The quiet muttering went silent for a while, and then hums of approval could be heard from some of the people. One man even got up and sat next to her, starting a small talk. Under any other circumstances Kida would've told the man to get lost, but since she was here to gather information, she smiled flirtatiously and tried to seem interested in the man's stories about himself.

"She's already got herself busy," Sinbad stated, glancing around his shoulder. He had taken a seat at a table farther away with Jim, and soon an older woman with fuzzy hair came to take their order. Sinbad ordered two beers without asking Jim's opinion, which Jim found annoying but didn't want to start a fight about since it was the most logical choice (the beers would last long enough to gather enough information and they had the least alcohol in them).

"What's the plan here?" Jim whispered. "It's not like we can just straight ask if anyone has heard about entering the Underworld."

"Watch the professional work." The captain leaned against the back of his chair, saying in the most careless and loudest voice he could: "Ah, Jim, I wonder what I should do with these golden coins." Jim could sense everyone's attention turning to them, even if the quiet muttering didn't die down. "If only I could use them to go to the Underworld alive…"

First no-one reacted (Kida sent a dirty look over her shoulder at Sinbad, almost like asking 'weren't we supposed to be subtle about this topic?'), but then a raspy-voiced woman laughed from one of the corner tables.

"You're not the first one to ask about that," the woman croaked, drinking the liquid from her small glass in one gulp. "I remember a cyborg coming here a week ago, asking the same question."

Jim sprang up, making the chair fall from the sudden movement almost startling Sinbad. "What? A cyborg?" He stared at the woman with a bewildered look on his face. "Did he say his name?"

"Silver, if I recall," the woman answered. "A friend of yours?"

Jim didn't know what to say. Was this some kind of a sick joke? He had been trying to look for John Silver for five years, and now when he had least expected it, the damn cyborg decided to give a sign of himself. And he seemed to be after the sphere too. "You could say that."

"Good," the woman nodded, drawing her sword. "Then you and your friend there can pay for the mess he made." Jim looked around and realized that almost everyone was now starting to stand up, holding a sword or some kind of other weapon in their hands. Fuck. That escalated quickly.

"Kida, seems like it's time for us to go," Sinbad notified and stood up slowly. Kida sighed from the bar counter, rolling her eyes. She thanked the man sitting next to her for the drink, and then she punched him straight in the face.

The people roared as they lunged forward towards the three outsiders. Sinbad quickly drew his own sword, dodging two attacks at the same time. Jim, on the other hand, cursed for not having a weapon and had nothing but a wooden chair to block the attacks. Someone shoved him to the floor, and he rolled under a table, barely missing the spiky morning star that hit the same spot where he had been just a second ago.

"You okay there?" Sinbad yelled over his shoulder at Jim, too busy to spare a look.

"A sword would come in handy!" He dodged another attack, trying to come up with a plan that they could use to escape. There were too many enemies to deal with them all.

"Are you sure you're big enough to handle a sword?" Sinbad grinned as if there was something funny about the situation they were in.

"Go to hell," Jim growled, hitting one of the men in the stomach with his elbow. The man dropped his sword, and Jim snatched it gratefully.

"That's the plan here!"

Sinbad didn't notice the earlier raspy-voiced woman sneak up behind his back, and Jim watched in horror as she got ready to stab the pirate. He reacted quickly, grabbing a broken leg of a chair and shouting 'get down' before throwing the piece of wood violently. If Sinbad's reflexes hadn't been as good as Jim had expected, it would've hit him instead since he was standing between the leg and the woman. He was lucky, though, and he threw himself on the floor just in time. The leg of the chair hit the woman between her eyes, knocking her out.

Sinbad watched Jim in awe.

They didn't have time for staring, though, because the men who had been already defeated were starting to get up, even more pissed off than before. They had to leave. Now.

"Kida!" Sinbad yelled, and Kida nodded. The captains seemed to have an odd understanding of each other's plans without saying any words.

"Kida, wait!" someone else called out. Kida had already dashed towards the exit, but she turned around when she heard her name spoken. A surprised look spread on her face as she recognized the caller.

"Milo?"

"We don't have time for friendly reunions now!" Sinbad grunted as he made his way towards the door.

There was only one man between Kida and the man who she apparently knew, and the female captain easily kicked him out of her way. Then she grabbed the other man by his hand, dragging him with her.

"Let's go!"

And they ran.

They parted into pairs of two to lose the people chasing them easier and ran to the opposite directions. There wasn't that many following them anyway, since many were injured and hadn't thought it worth it to chase after them. Soon the others gave up too when they realized that they had lost them.

After making sure that no one was following them anymore, Jim and Sinbad stopped to catch their breath in an alleyway. Jim leaned his back against the brick wall, taking deep breaths. Sinbad did the same, watching the man next to him from the corner of his eye.

"You saved me."

Jim closed his eyes. Yes, he had, and now he regretted it. He hadn't had time to think, he had just done what he thought was right. "Consider yourself lucky to be saved by the famous Jim Hawkins."

Sinbad huffed, a tiny smile tugging at his lips, which he quickly hid. "Right." A silence landed between them. "We should go look for Kida and the other one." They agreed and started walking to the direction where the others had run.

Kida and Milo had hid themselves behind a large cart that was filled with stacks of hay. The men chasing after them hadn't noticed their hiding place, and they had run straight past them. Kida snickered after the coast was clear, and she turned to look at Milo.

"Why are you here? And more importantly: what the hell were you doing in that pub?" she asked. Milo looked sheepish, turning his eyes on the ground.

"Uh, yeah, about that… I came here to do research about Greece. And that pub was the only place quiet enough concentrate on – on my studies around here. Until you showed up, that is."

Kida snorted and smiled. It was just like the Milo he knew to go to a place which had a fishy atmosphere around it just because it was quiet enough.

"But wow, at first I didn't even recognize you! I – I mean, it's been almost 12 years since I last saw you," Milo continued, a smile spreading on his face too. "Then I heard the bearded man call you by your name, and I just knew it was you."

"Oh, yeah? Well, you haven't changed a bit," the female pirate grinned, giving a hug to her childhood friend. Milo still had the big round eyeglasses and the same hairstyle as he had had when they were kids.

"So, what are you doing here?" Milo asked, and Kida realized that Milo probably didn't know about the whole piracy thing at all. After all, she had left the town they had grown up together when she had been 15 years old and got a job on a merchant ship. A few months later the ship she had been on had sunk, and she had been rescued by pirates. And here she was now: a pirate captain herself.

"I'm here with my crew to search for an important piece of a map," Kida said. She didn't want to lie. Not to Milo.

"Really? So that means you're a captain?" Milo beamed.

"Yes. And the bearded man you were talking about earlier is also a captain."

"That's amazing! I, uh, didn't know that captains were allowed to have visible tattoos and such, but seems like I was wrong," he said, referring to the blue tattoos on Kida's face. Kida smiled sadly, and for the first time ever, she felt ashamed of being a pirate.

"Here they come," she stated when she noticed Jim and Sinbad walking down the street. She helped Milo, whose legs had gone numb, to stand up, and they stepped out of the hiding place.

"Mind telling us now who this man with you is?" Sinbad asked Kida, looking Milo down and up with crossed arms. The man definitely didn't look like a pirate; more of a teacher if anything. He wondered where the two knew each other from.

Kida put her hand on Milo's shoulder. "This is Milo, he's my childhood friend. And Milo, this is Jim," she motioned towards the said man, "and the other one is… Sinbad."

Milo's eyebrows drew together as he was trying to remember where he had heard that name before. Then he remembered. "A… a pirate? You're working with a pirate?"

"Why, yes, at least someone knows me!" Sinbad grinned but shut his mouth when Kida stared at him.

"I'm a pirate myself, too," Kida admitted after picking up her courage. Her eyes were full of sadness as she watched Milo open and close his mouth repeatedly like a fish, being at loss for words. Then he seemed to decide something in his mind.

"Um, well, I'm not against it, I was just a little bit, uh, surprised," he rambled. "I guess I could've seen this coming. Being an ordinary sailor wouldn't, you know, suit you as well as being a pirate."

Kida knew it was a compliment, even if it was said in an awkward way. The small pat from Milo on her upper back confirmed it, and she started grinning in relief. Sinbad and Jim watched their interaction, and they both seemed confused to see someone being so close and friendly with Kida. And it was even more confusing that Kida let him.

"I don't want to ruin the moment, but we should look for another place to gather information since our hot-blooded guy Jim here ruined our chances in the last place," Sinbad said, earning a glare from Jim. The captain was curious to ask about why the cyborg was so important to Jim, but he knew he wouldn't get an answer. The most important thing right now was to worry about the fact that the said cyborg seemed also to be after the sphere. Their sphere.

"What kind of information are you looking for?" Milo asked. "I – I don't want to brag, but I do have some sort of knowledge."

Sinbad glanced at Kida, and since she didn't show any signs of telling about the map to her childhood friend to be a bad idea, he answered: "We're looking for a half of a map. We know it's located in the Underworld, but the problem is how we're going to get there. Alive."

"The Underworld? Why didn't you say so!"

He started searching for something from his bag, ending up dropping half of the papers and documents inside it. After they all had helped him pick them up, he grabbed one of the papers, eyeing through it quickly. When he found the thing he was looking for, he started smiling excitedly, pointing something on the paper.

"This is it! This will help you get there," Milo announced, and Sinbad snatched the paper from his hand. He squinted his eyes as he tried to read it.

"How do you know what this says? What language even is this?"

Kida snatched the paper to herself, giving it back to Milo. Milo looked sheepish again.

"The paper is written in Ancient Greek, so it may be, uh, hard to read if you can't speak Ancient Greek," he explained. "I'm a linguist, so I know what it says. It'll take some time to translate it, though, but if you're eager to know…"

"Wonderful! You can come with us, then," Kida smiled.

"He's not coming with us," Sinbad refused.

The two captains seemed to go an internal fight against each other through staring, and Jim decided to interfere before the fight actually took a physical form: "It's the most logical thing to take him with us. None of us can speak Ancient Greek, and if you want to get there before… before the cyborg, we should use any help we can get." God, he already sounded like a pirate.

Sinbad closed his eyes and took a deep breath, rubbing his temple. "Why are you always against me?"

"So it's a yes, then?" Kida received a resistant nod from the other captain. Everyone's eyes turned to Milo, who realized that he didn't really have a choice here. Not that he didn't want to help; he was glad to see Kida and to get to spend some time with her in a long time.

"Well, I was the one to suggest helping you, so I guess I'm coming!"

After the agreement they started walking back to the harbor. Milo would need some time to translate the text, and they all needed to prepare for the trip. Sinbad let Jim keep the sword ("if it'll help you to save my life again, then by all means, keep it"), but he decided to be extra careful with him from now on. Especially since the man had finally brought his pillow and blanket back to the captain's cabin.

A/N: I've been quite busy with playing Life is Strange (it was an amazing game), so this chapter took longer than usually to write. I know the whole pub thing is from England, but I thought that since the harbor in this story is an international one, it wouldn't hurt if I used the term 'pub'. :D One of my readers asked if I could use Milo in this fic, so here you go~

And now the answers to your comments:

Dancer who loves Westerns: I remember answering your comment on Ao3, but I'll thank you again!

Guest: Ahhh it makes me happy to hear that you like my writing style and story so far! I'll try to keep up the quality of this fic. :D

Reviewer: Thanks for your comment! It was much appreciated~ I've thought about writing Jim interact with the other members of the crew too, but I decided to leave it 'behind the scenes' since in my opinion there would be too many characters and it would become confusing (and the other crewmates may not play such an important role in this story). But I'll try to write them in more from now on! As for the development of Jim and Sinbad's relationship: I definitely agree! :D There are some time skips in this story, and in my head I've imagined their relationship developing slowly during those skips too, so sometimes the development may come across as too fast.

Happy New Year everyone! Thanks for reading this, it means so much to me.