I am pleased to announce that Jack is now back to normal, and will be his usual cheeky self from now on. And I honestly have no idea how long it takes to sail about to different Caribbean islands in a rowboat, so bear with me on that count, please - willing suspension of disbelief, and all that. Please read and review!

Disclaimer: All belongs to Disney.

5. Adrift

When I awoke, I found myself looking up at the bright blue Caribbean sky. For a moment, I wondered briefly if I had died, but the next moment a sharp pain in my side dissuaded me from that theory. Groaning, I sat up as best I could on my elbows and looked about me. I was taking up most of the bottom of a tiny boat, just big enough for two people, bobbing up and down in the waves. Crouched at the other end of the boat was the pirate, doing his best to row the boat with a pair of short oars.

'Ah, you're awake,' he said cheerily as I took in my surroundings with a look of surprise etched all over my face. 'Well then, if it won't hurt too much, would you mind pulling your legs in a bit so I can have a bit more room?'

I immediately pulled my legs to my chest, wincing at the stab in my side as I did so.

'That's better,' sighed the pirate, stretching out his legs a bit and continuing to row. In the daylight, I could see that he had an immense black eye that was a startling shade of purple, as well as a puffy lower lip and a number of cuts on his face. Remembering the beating he had taken at Beckett's hand, I flinched involuntarily.

'Where are we?' I asked. It was just one of the many questions that were going through my head, but as there was no land to be seen and I did not know how to swim, it seemed like one of the more relevant ones.

The pirate shrugged. 'No idea, love,' he answered without a trace of concern, 'but you can help me on that account in a minute. I suppose you'll be wanting to know why we are here next, no?'

I nodded, not really caring in what order my questions were answered, as long as they all were answered.

The pirate laid the oars aside for a minute, rested his arms on top of his knees, rested his chin on top of his hands, and, with a smile, began to talk.

'Well, just after you went out on the floor of Beckett's office, this old cook comes bustling in, fretting about the fact she heard screaming. She stops dead short when she sees Beckett sprawled out cold on the ground, then when she sees you with a knife sticking out of your side. How did that happen, if you don't mind me asking?' the pirate added.

I rubbed my side unconsciously. 'Beckett had a knife,' I recalled slowly. 'He pulled it out of his desk drawer while he was signing the letter you told him to write, and that's why I grabbed him from behind, so he wouldn't kill you. I suppose he must have stabbed me some time while I was trying to strangle him.'

The idea that I had been trying to kill a man struck me as immoral, and I frowned slightly. The pirate noticed and winked at me. 'Tit for tat, love, he was going to kill me, you had every right to try to do him in first. Nothing to be ashamed of, just one of those little survival things, savvy?' Without waiting for an answer, he continued on with his story.

'So the cook comes in, sees you with a knife sticking out of your side, and picks you up and carries you downstairs. She cleans out the wound, bandages you up, shoves a sack of vittles into my arms, and tells me that I need to get you out of there as quick as possible. "Don't wanna watch her grow old and weary like me, trapped within these walls," she says to me, "you take her with you, and you teach her how to be free and stay free." So I go down to the docks with you in tow – and that was not an easy task, I'll tell you, love, seeing as my rib is almost certainly broken – and manage to get us a passage aboard a ship. Told the man at the docks you were my sick slave, and we needed to get you to Cuba for a doctor as fast as possible.'

'So how did we end up on this boat, then?' I cut in, a bit resentful due to the fact that being aboard a large ship somehow made the danger of drowning seem a lot smaller than being in a small rowboat.

'Because it would have been all too obvious come daylight that you were not sick, you were a runaway slave with a serious injury, and then where would we have been? Good thing the man who secured me a passage was a right idiot – only reason he let us on was because I had a letter signed by Beckett and I was wearing a hat typical of the East India Trading Company.' The pirate pulled off the hat he had stolen from Beckett and examined it with distaste. ''Course, it could stand for a little less brocade and feathers – what do they think I am, a Mardi Gras float?' Scowling, the pirate began to tear the offending embellishments off of the hat.

'So you stole a rowboat,' I finished.

The pirate stopped tearing apart the hat for a minute and raised an eyebrow at me. 'Commandeered a rowboat,' he corrected. 'Borrowed it without permission, if you like.'

I laughed in spite of myself, and quickly stopped when I realized that laughter did not at all agree with the wound on my side. 'I'm Anamaria,' I said, holding out a hand, which the pirate took.

'Captain Jack Sparrow,' he replied, shaking my hand solemnly for a moment before letting it go. For some reason, it felt as though my fingers tingled for a bit where Jack Sparrow had touched them, even after he had resumed plucking feathers from the hat that was formerly Beckett's.

'Where did the old hat come from?' I asked curiously, remembering the pained look in the pirate's eyes as the flames devoured it.

'My father,' grunted Jack Sparrow, not looking up. 'Last bloody thing he gave me before I ran away. Hasn't spoken to me since – thought I'd at least have that to remember him by, even if he himself refuses to acknowledge my existence.' He plucked the last of the feathers from the hat and held it up. 'There, much better.' He placed it on his head happily. In my opinion, once de-feathered it looked exactly like his old hat had, albeit less worn and faded.

'So, you said you didn't know where we were going,' I reminded him, deciding to drop the matter of the hat, as it seemed to be a rather touchy subject.

'Ah, yes,' said Jack Sparrow, holding up a finger. 'And this, dear Anamaria, is where you come in.' He drew from his jacket the compass that he had taken back from Beckett and put it into my hand. 'Strange as it may sound, I wasn't lying to Beckett about this compass. So now all you need to do is decide on what you want most in this world.'

I raised an eyebrow at the pirate. He was asking me to choose where we would sail? What I wanted most in the world… yes, I knew what that was, but how can a compass point to freedom?

'And what am I supposed to be wanting most in this world?' I asked him finally, deciding that this had to be trick question. His smile widened.

'A multitude of things, love. A good drink, maybe, or a warm bed to sleep in. Somewhere where you can stop for a bit and wait for that side of yours to patch itself up, perhaps. Maybe you want to go somewhere where Beckett will never find you, somewhere where it's easy to disappear, savvy? A place where there are no rules, and therefore no one will care what the colour of your skin is. Or,' he looked up into the sky, 'somewhere where it is easy to gain possession of a ship with which to go sailing off across the oceans for the rest of all time, free as the wind.'

I sat staring out at the clouds for some time, feeling overwhelmed by possibilities and trying to ignore the dully throbbing pain in my side. 'Do such places exist?' I asked after a long moment of contemplation.

The pirate clapped his hands in delight. 'Better than that, love – they all exist as one place.' He flipped open the lid of the compass as watched nervously as its point swung round until it finally shuddered to a halt at one point. He looked up at me, mischief glinting in his eyes. 'Tortuga it is, then,' he exclaimed, seizing the oars and beginning to row furiously. I suddenly felt exhausted, and slumped against side of the rowboat, too tired to even bother asking where Tortuga was. I watched the pirate row steadily on until my eyelids became too heavy and I dropped off to sleep.

The next four days passed in dreary monotony. I felt quite bad that I could not help Jack row the boat (I imagined his broken rib had to hurt nearly as much as my wound), but whenever I began to apologize, he just smiled and told me to keep quiet or he would make me row for a bit. At regular intervals we would eat some of the food that Juliana had packed for us, and every evening together we watched the sun set, sending shimmers of gold across the water towards our boat while overhead the sky faded through a spectrum of vivid colors. Although still greatly weakened from my injury, I felt more alive than I ever had – I woke up every morning with the sea breeze on my face and no fear at all.

Meanwhile, I had become more and more fascinated with Captain Jack Sparrow – the curious way he moved, as if he was constantly trying to keep his balance on a swaying boat, his motley assortment of distinctive clothes, his habits of calling me 'love' and ending sentences with either a 'savvy?' or an 'eh?' I had never met anyone like him before, and was certain I never would meet anyone else like him in my life. The man seemed to take everything in stride as it came, and did not once fret over any of his injuries during the time we were on the rowboat. He rarely took off the hat he had stolen from Beckett, as if afraid that he would lose it too if he did, and he kept his sword and pistol on him at all times.

'Why didn't you just shoot Beckett?' I asked him on our second day out at sea, watching him take a break in rowing to carefully clean his pistol. 'You had your pistol on you, didn't you?'

Jack frowned. 'Now try to understand this if you can, love – there's only one shot in this pistol. And with only one shot, a man needs to choose his fights carefully.'

'What does that mean?' I asked, irritated that he would not just give me a straight answer.

He looked up at me for a long moment, then sighed. 'It means that the only person I'm going to waste this bullet on is the man who left me stranded on an island with naught but this pistol, and sailed away with my ship.' Although his voice was cold with suppressed anger, his eyes misted over slightly at the mention of this last item.

'Your ship,' I repeated. 'So why do you still call yourself "Captain Jack Sparrow" if you don't have a ship any more?'

The pirate laughed. 'Because, Miss Anamaria, I fully intend to get my ship back. Why do you think I can't find Tortuga myself using my compass?' And he went back to polishing the handle of his pistol without another word. I could do nothing else but sit back and smile in amusement at the man who was turning what should have been a terrifically boring voyage into the most perplexing days of my life.

After five days of drifting about at sea, I had almost given up hope of ever seeing land again, when late one afternoon I heard Jack shout, 'Land ho!' I sat up so quickly that my side began burning in agony, but I barely noticed the pain – just within eyesight, a black speck sitting on the waves informed me that we were soon to land on Tortuga.

'We made it!' I cried, all too eager to be back on solid ground. I beamed at the pirate. 'How can I ever thank you, Captain Sparrow?'

Jack snorted. 'Don't,' he said. 'I would never have been able to get back here if not for you.' He began to row a little faster.

'So what are you planning to do here?' I asked him. I suddenly realized that I had no idea how I would be received on this island, and I found myself wishing that Jack would stay with me until I had recovered, although I knew I would never have the nerve to ask him to, he had already done so much for me.

'What else?' Jack grinned. 'Find me a crew, procure a ship, and go after my Pearl.' He winced slightly as he hit himself in the rib with one of the oars in his excitement. 'Should probably wait till this is better, though,' he grumbled, looking thoroughly put out. I tried to fix my face into a look of sympathy, but inside my heart soared.

'You and me together, then?' I said, gesturing towards my wounded left side and trying to sound nonchalant. 'Look,' I said, leaning forward, 'I'm not going to know a soul on this island, and… just while you're recovering, I mean, I was wondering if…'

'If you could stay around and learn the ropes of pirating, you mean?' I stopped and tried to read the expression on Jack's blank face. Finally he shrugged one shoulder. 'I suppose I owe you for saving my life, don't I. Fine, then, we have an accord.'

I felt my face split into a wide smile. 'Thank you, Jack,' I breathed.

'Captain Jack,' corrected the pirate with a wink.

And, for those of you who thought you recognized the comment about the Mardi Gras float, yes, that is based on a hilarious comment that Jack Davenport makes about his costume in the commentary for CotBP - for all of you who haven't watched that commentary (the one with Keira Knightley and Jack Davenport), I HIGHLY recommend it, it's extremely funny! On that note, for all of you Johnny Depp fans, I'm sure most of you have seen this already, but for those of you who haven't, watch the deleted scene 'The French' on the CotBP DVD - it has me rolling on the floor, laughing my head off every time I watch it (even when I'm in a very bad mood). WATCH IT.