Author's Note: Hi everyone!!! Chapter 3 has more action. If you have any criticism, good or bad it is welcome.

Disclaimer: I don't own POTC.

Chapter 3

A Proposition

Isabella dashed up the stairs and to her room. She ripped out of her gown and pulled on some commoners clothes and shoved her hair into a hat. She grabbed a small bag of clothes and was about to leave the room when a bright flash caught her eye. She grabbed the ring and a chain off her dressing table and shoved them into her pocket. She scribbled a note and quietly closed her door. Everyone had already gone to bed so all the lights were out. She tip-toed down the stairs and left the note on a table beneath a mirror outside her father's study. Isabella snuck to the door and slipped out into a new world.

As she walked down her fifth street, Isabella panicked. Where was she going to go? She considered this as she walked aimlessly down the road. Her feet brought her to the docks and into the tavern where all the sailors stayed.

The door opened and was shut in her face.

"Excuse me! Don't you know who I am?" she demanded of the man who passed her.

"Oh, laddy, tryin' to be funny are yeh?" he chuckled and walked away.

It was then that Isabella realized she now was a twenty-one year old boy instead of a noblewoman.

She entered the tavern and walked to the counter to buy a drink. Isabella took the tankard of mead she was given and sat at a table in the corner and surveyed the drunken crowd.

The man at the bar was handing out drinks in one hand and taking coins in the other. There was a man playing a fiddle on the other side of the room and drunken men and women were dancing. Many were just sitting at a table nursing their mead watching the goings on. But there was one thing that caught her eye. A middle aged man was walking around the room talking to people sitting alone.

Isabella watched this man from under the brim of her hat and took another drink of mead. The man sat down across from her at the table and cleared his throat.

"May I help you?" she asked in a polite male voice.

"Actually, I was hoping you could. My boss owns a ship, ya see, and he was he is looking for a few more men to add to his crew. So would you be interested in coming aboard the ship, laddy?" he asked.

"Where would we be going?" Isabella questioned with curiosity.

The man smiled at her interest. "Well, laddy, first we would be going to a place that goes by the name of Tortuga. Ever heard of it?"

"Yes, I have." Tortuga was a place where drunks and pirates lived. It was the last pirate town in this area of the world. "Where would we be going to next?"

"Well…ah…I don't be knowin' fer sure," he stammered. "The Captain hasn't told me yet."

"Ah ha," she murmured. Isabella considered this. Sailing was something she always wanted to learn how to do, but never was allowed because it was considered un-ladylike. If she went with man, she could travel the distance on a ship, learning how to sail to Tortuga. If she didn't like Tortuga, she could always go somewhere else or resort to coming home.

"I'll do it," she decided.

"Great, laddy, the Captain will be pleased. Now, what be your name?"

"My name?" Isabella stammered.

"Yes, laddy, your name. What be it?"

"My name….My name is Izzy."

"Aye, Izzy, I go by Gibbs. Be down by the docks at midnight. We will discuss further details there. Do we have an accord?" he asked holding out his hand.

"Yes, we do." She shook his hand. "Midnight you said?"

"Aye, midnight, we leave then." Gibbs got up to leave.

"Um…Gibbs?"

"Aye?"

"There is a slight problem?"

"Is there?"

"Yes there is. I've never sailed before."

Gibbs laughed. "Laddy, that be no problem. The crew will teach ya how to sail. We've taught dunderheads how to sail before and you be no dunderhead."

With that Gibbs left Izzy to her thoughts and disappeared into the crowd.