"I'd have to have a lot more to drink."

"How much more?"

Elizabeth gave him a challenging look and took a swig from the bottle. She held it out to him, her arm locked and exactly perpendicular to the sand-covered ground. Jack guzzled down as much as his mouth would allow him before swallowing it with a satisfied sigh. If the little lass thought she could out drink him, the heat must be taking its toll on her.

"You said we had a month, maybe more?" she asked.

"Aye, provided we boil our water and find enough food." Being back here, Jack glared at the horizon, imagining the Pearl staring him down, Barbossa at the forecastle with his spyglass, waving at him with that scurvy grin. He shivered in spite of the heat. Standing, he marched into the brush.

"Are you going to find food?" Elizabeth asked, running after him, the bottle still in her hand. She handed it to him and climbed atop a bent-over palm tree, arched just enough to reach the top of another one still fortunate enough to stand straight. She extended her arms and shuffled across the trunk, letting her arms fall in front of her against the straight tree's trunk.

"Cut your feet that way," he warned.

"Aren't there fruits on palm trees?" she called down to him, slightly out of breath. "I'm sure not even you can inhale nothing but rum."

"If that's a bet…" he called back up to her, setting the bottle down next to him. He came closer to the tree trunk as Elizabeth climbed higher.

"Oh! I found one!" she squealed. Jack could only see her holding something to her chest with one arm while jerking something with the other. "If I come down with it, will you take it back to the beach?"

"Just drop it down."

A scratchy ball that looked like it was covered in twine fell a few feet from him. He gathered it to him, inspecting it. "They look good. Are there any more?"

"Loads of them!" she laughed.

"Shake the branch!"

"What?"

"Shake the branch, love! Some of them might come down on their own!"

A half dozen coconuts plummeted to the ground after a harsh rustling. Each one fit well in Jack's hands, about the size of a small child's head. About to count them a second time, he heard a snap above him.

"You all right up there?"

"Just coming down," she said, her voice strained. She finally came into view, her shift stained in a few places, her feet miraculously uncut. She pulled her body back to the arched tree trunk, straddling it this time instead of standing on it. Somewhere between sliding and scooting, she reached the middle of the trunk before losing her balance.

"Hold still," Jack said, setting the coconuts next to the bottle. Holding out his arms, he waited for her to pull herself up. "Just jump down."

"I'm not as mad as you are, Captain Sparrow."

"Just jump, darling. You're close enough to the ground as it is."

Elizabeth sighed and let go, hitting the sand with a thud. Dusting herself off, she picked up a few of the coconuts. "How do you eat these?"

"You open them up," he said. "But these won't last long." He was about to ask her if there were anymore up there that looked ripe, but it was emasculating enough that she had been the one to learn that answer. "You stay in the shade and I'll forage some more."

"Actually, wouldn't it be best for you to build a fire?" Jack raised his eyebrow at her. Who among us has been marooned before, he wanted to say, but that wasn't really a qualifier that made someone a better leader than the other. That, and a fire should really get going before dark when the wind would pick up. "I could gather some more food. I'm afraid I don't know how to make a fire."

Only nodding, Jack took the rest of the coconuts from her and began his way back out to the beach. Dumping them into a pile, he broke off two twigs from the brush and positioned them.

"Don't forget your rum," Elizabeth said, strolling past him and into the water. Already up to her waist in ocean, she ducked down and disappeared under the water. Jack kept working on the fire, knowing that gunpowder might prove a great asset, but at the same time, knew it might prove a great waste of one bullet. Besides, that cankerous fustilarian that posed as a ship captain needed this bullet, had needed it for ten years.

At last, after a few crackles, a flame emitted from the twigs. Jack took another drink of rum, nodding his head. The girl may have had the foresight and presence of mind to know to gather food, but without fire, food, water, and even shelter wouldn't keep them alive on this rock for too long. The rum tasted even better now, the way its sweetness tickled one's throat on the way down. Maybe this time the heat wouldn't feed off of him. Maybe this time, now that the fruit was ripe and more brush had grown, it could be quite a comfortable wasteland until a ship came, and that ship would not be the Dutchman. He opened his compass, letting it spin before it settled on pointing due east. Well, that effectively pointed out the location of that key, or was it the Pearl that was out that way? No, it would be on its way back to Isla de Muerta, so it had to be the key. Splendid. Somewhere due east was the key to the chest that would save his soul.

And here he was depending on that plucky vixen to bring back dinner.

His head snapped towards the direction of the water, searching for any sign of her. She emerged with her arms full of something he couldn't decipher, the seaweed encasing it.

"Here," she panted, letting her arms fall. "Oysters. I see you got a fire going." She plopped to the ground and opened another bottle of rum.

Jack grimaced at the shells down below him, his lips curling into a deep frown. Just the thought of it made his nose and forehead wrinkle.

"I didn't know I was to find food that was specifically to your liking," she grunted.

"It's not that," he said, still looking at the oysters. It was like watching a house fire, so terrible it demanded one's attention. "It's May."

"May?"

"Yes, see." He bent down and picked one of them up. "Even cooked these won't be the oysters you're used to. When there's no R in the month, they'll make ye sick."

"Sick how?"

"Well, I won't go into details," he said, a mischievous grin forming on his face, "but I've had one too many sailors under me command complain about some other poor sot's 'spillage.' What made it so unique from the usual brushes with seasickness is the particular end of the body this spillage likes to, well, spill from. Needless to say, on top of all the dead fish around, we don't need that kind of smell keeping us company, savvy?"

Elizabeth frowned and stared out into the sea, pouting her lips.

"Unless you want to take the risk, but we have enough elements going against our favor."

"I'm sure there are thousands of people who would be more useful," she whispered, tapping the bottle in frustration. "You might have told me before I wasted all that time when I could have found us something else."

"Relax, love. No one said you were useless. You're able to sail and good in a fight. Trust me when I say that the only way you could be absolutely, most assuredly useless is if you were to go all hysterical and scream we were about to die. Nothin' could be done with ye if you carried on like that. Polish off one of those bottles with me and we can have some water to boil."

A tight laugh escaped from her as she tipped the bottle upside down, letting the contents pour onto the sand.

"Or I'll take it for me self, seeing as how ye can't be trusted with it!" he yelled, snatching the bottle from her and taking a deep swig. "I would have thought a governor's daughter would have an appreciation for the finer things in life."

"Captain Sparrow, show me how to eat this fruit and I promise I'll be more conservative with the rum." She pulled her legs into her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

"Call me Jack."

Not hearing his name repeated by her, he sat next to her and opened up a coconut. She followed suit, ravenously inhaling the contents. Before he could reach for the bottle to wash down the milky substance, she beat him to it and took a loud sip of rum. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she took a breath and dove back into it, and from the sounds of it, drained it better than any dark creature associated with vampirism ever could have. He smirked at the meal before them, the sun beginning to sink below the horizon line. Yes, now was the time to have a good fire going, he thought. Oh wait, he did have one going. His smirk grew. All they needed was a few thin candles and a silk tablecloth with some cellists in the background and it would surpass any nobleman's dinner. Ah, he remembered. Speaking of music…

"You know, Lizzie, probably the best way to survive maroon-ment is to find ways to pass the time."

"I'm not sleeping with you, Captain Sparrow."

His back jerked and he spit out the rum he had just let splash into his mouth. "No one asked you to!" he blurted, wiping his chin with his sleeve. She certainly was full of surprises. It was the last thing he had expected to come out of that mouth of hers, although now that the image was in his mind, it was most decidedly not a disagreeable prospect. "I just wanted to hear your song."

"That?" Elizabeth asked, putting the bottle down. "I told you I would need more to drink."

"That can be arranged." He stood and took another bottle out of the hiding place. Bringing it back, he sat it next to the one they already opened. "Have as much as you deem necessary."

"Do you think your crew is all right?"

His eyes widened. How she transitioned from mentioning love-making to checking on crewmen's wellbeing, he would never figure out.

"They're fine, I expect. Gibbs is with them, and if in the rare event he doesn't know what to do, Anamaria is with them, too."

"Is she another one of your conquests?"

"You're not nearly as innocent as you act sometimes, are you?" he asked. Wise of her not to answer. "No, she is not."

"Really?" She sat up straighter, her hands resting on her knees. "Why not?" She pushed the bottle closer to him, where he took another sip.

"It's not really a topic of discussion, love."

"Please?"

"I'll tell you what," Jack said. "Teach me your little song and I'll tell ye."

She cleared her throat. "Well," she said after one last ahem, "The chorus is simply 'yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me.' Then there are all these verses. Let's see…we pillage, we plunder/we rifle and loot/drink up, me hearties, yo ho/we kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot/drink up, me hearties, yo ho."

Jack repeated the verse, taking a drink after he finished. As much as he had needed to memorize, learning a simple song would take no time, much to his dismay. Maybe there were several more verses. He ran over the lyrics in his head one more time before swallowing.

"Where did you learn that?"

"My mother taught it to me before she died. Now, enough stalling. You promised me."

Forgive me, Anamaria, but I never promised you and I did promise this bonny thing I would tell her, he told himself.

"Let's just say I'm not Anamaria's type."

"Now if you're going to be that vague about everything, I see no point in continuing," Elizabeth challenged, taking a drink. They certainly weren't finishing off this bottle very quickly, Jack thought. As tiny as her body was, she had to be feeling the rum working its magic in her, but he still felt no different. That was the only side effect to enjoying the drink—experience worked against you. He paused in his anecdote long enough to down the rest of it and work on opening the second bottle.

"Fine, curious little viper. It's not for ladies' ears, but who are we kidding with that, since we've already discussed the topic of fornication so delicately? Well, it was like this, ye see. Me and Gibbs are spendin' some time with lovely Anamaria and her brother and I'm not at all opposed to making her a 'conquest,' to quote you, so one day, I walked into her cabin without knocking." He paused to see her eyes widen. He remembered when his mother's stories got too raunchy for child's ears at times and he would give her that look, the look that told her he knew he was being naughty by listening but it didn't change the fact he wanted to hear the rest. "Do you know what I saw?"

"I have no idea. I suppose you saw her."

"That I did. I saw her, and a companion of hers…a lady companion." Now, that's the kind of tale a well-trained governess should not have told you, he thought, looking at her. Her cheeks blushed, the growing fire not helping the matter. "More of the song, if you please."

"Oh, oh yes. Um, we did the first verse. You should sing that to make sure you didn't forget it."

"Just one moment, darling. I sound better when my throat's not so dry," he laughed, taking the first drink out of the new bottle. He sang the first verse and the chorus back to her, and memorized the second verse as she sang it. "We kindle and char/inflame and ignite/drink up, me hearties, yo ho/we burn up the city/we're really a fright/drink up me hearties, yo ho!"

"You are a quick study, Captain Sparrow," Elizabeth said, dangling the bottle in front of her. "But you know I get to ask you more questions."

"Just you ask away. It's a delightful little tune."

"When did you become a pirate?"

"You mean in all you read that never came up? Tsk tsk. The stories bypass my better years." Jack stood and paced behind her, the rum loosening his tongue more than he wanted it to. If one were to ask Captain Jack Sparrow why he preferred to drink alone, that was the answer. "It was a long, long time ago, darling. I was…can't remember that, but it was back when me Pearl was the Wicked Wench and I pissed off a lot of people."

That bottle in her hand looked better and better the more he paced. Finally, he jumped down to the spot right behind her and threw his arms over her, wrenching it out of her grasp. He ignored her surprised laughs, letting her shoulders bear the weight of his arms. Gulping it down, he held it in front of her face and tapped it against her lips.

"If you insist," she said, taking the bottle back and holding it.

"But ye know, I didn't always want to be a pirate, no. When I was your age, I was just a sailor, just makin' me way in the world. Nobody thought I'd turn out to be a pirate. Not me. Little me was just your average stupid kid. Know what I wanted to be when I was a little boy? I wanted to be a bird! Now…" he leaned over her, his arm around her. "There anymore verses to that ditty?"

"Um…" she trailed off, wiggling in his embrace, but he held onto her waist. "We're rascals and scoundrels/and villains and knaves/drink up, me hearties yo ho/we're devils and black sheep/and really bad eggs/drink up, me hearties, yo ho!"

"Is that it?"

"That's it, I'm afraid," Elizabeth said, freeing herself from him and standing up. "You should sing all of it now. But first…" she tapped the bottle in his hand and ran off to get one for herself. "You've been keeping all of it to yourself."

"How selfish. I do apologize." He cleared his throat and belted out the song by the fire, bowing after he finished. She clapped her hands and played with her bottle until he picked her up and began singing it again. And if one were to ask Captain Jack Sparrow how much he remembered of that night when Elizabeth Swann burned all his rum, he would honestly tell you he didn't know anything past that point.

A/N: I do not own POTC, just love it, love it like Mork loves Mindy. So now you know why Anamaria chased Jack out of her ship.