A/N: Hiya everyone! Thanks so much to all those who reviewed the last chapter! I hope you find this one entertaining :)

Chapter V

"Get up!" was the unwelcome order I awoke to. Either Tim or Tom (I had no idea which was which) had come downstairs and forcefully roused me from my pleasant and much-needed slumber.

"What's wrong?" I inquired drowsily.

"We're under attack! Make haste! All hands on deck!" he called spastically, rushing back up the ladder.

I quickly composed myself and ran up as well, only half believing him. This was certainly something that I needed to see for myself.

Sure enough, however, another ship had settled itself beside us and the crew as preparing to board the Poseidon's Jewel.

"Load the guns!" I heard the captain yell urgently.

"Who's attacking us?" I called above the din. The opposing ship clearly didn't belong to the Navy, so I suspected that it was another pirate's.

"That be Red-faced Redford's Jolly Roger flying true enough," Marty answered ominously, "But I don't believe that to be 'is ship." I squinted make out the flag, only to see the image of two white skull and crossbones against a red background.

"Red-faced Redford?"

"Aye."

That name sounded awfully familiar… But where had I heard it?

And then I remembered – that was the name of the man that Sparrow had asked Gibbs about. Suddenly everything made sense – Sparrow had stolen his ship, and he was here to retrieve it. That explained why they weren't firing their cannons at us, at least.

"Sparrow, this is your doing!" I shouted at him.

I don't know what had come over me. Perhaps I truly had been angry. It wasn't that I had been ethically opposed to his actions – no, it wasn't that. It was that I didn't want to unnecessarily have my life endangered. Hell, I didn't want to die – and I wasn't about to, if I could help it. As far as I could see, Sparrow had put all of us in peril by not keeping us informed. And there wasn't anything I hated more than someone treating my life carelessly; I wasn't some disposable toy to be used and then discarded of. Perhaps it was a weakness of moral character, but it was certainly something that would make me a good pirate: I was quick to desert at the first signs of trouble. Sure, perhaps I was flighty and I certainly couldn't be considered loyal, but I was good at surviving.

"Beg pardon?" he said incredulously. He had been casually walking along the side of the ship, cutting the ropes that Redford's crew had thrown over.

His surprise was understandable – I'd hardly said two words to him before this moment, and now, all of a sudden, I was behaving defiantly.

"The Poseidon's Jewel is Redford's ship, isn't it?" I elaborated.

This got the rest of the crew's attention, save Gibbs, Cotton, and Marty, who seemed to have anticipated this type of behavior.

"Love," he started exasperatedly, "If ye were looking to sail under honorable colors, you've certainly come to the absolute worst place possible. We're pirates, m'dear. Buccaneers. Marauders. Scoundrels. Scum of the sea, what have you. I've run out of synonyms, but that's beside the point. You should hardly be astonished."

"Now, to those of you who haven't been swayed by Miss Cassiopeia's little morally-charged outburst – which I should hope would be all of you – listen up," he continued, "Redford is not very well going to fire on his own ship, savvy? And whoever it is so graciously lending him their ship is certainly not going to want it to get destroyed. All we have to do is defend ourselves and we'll be free to continue onwards to the treasure, aye?"

"How do you know someone's lent him their ship," I countered snippily.

"Because if he stole that one, why would he bother trying to retrieve this one?" he answered with a bored look. "Now what say you, ye scallywags? Still got a taste for gold?"

Everyone loudly confirmed that they were ready to fight; all apart from me, that is.

"Smashing. Now fire all!"

Then, the first thunder of cannons rang out, followed by several other crashing roars. I watched in amazement as we blew gaping holes in the hull of the other ship, causing the wood to splinter in sickening cracks.

However, the battle was not to be one so easily. Sparrow had taken his place back at the helm, which meant that Redford's men had snuck the opportunity to start swinging from their ship to ours.

When the first man hit the deck, Wentworth was right there to bravely fight him off.

Out of fear, I unsheathed my cutlass. More and more people (by more and more I really only mean around three more) flew over the railing of the ship.

The Spritelies worked together nimbly and knocked one of our opponents overboard, while Marty was engaged in a sword fight and Emery clumsily battled the third man. So far, I had been left alone.

However, a man wearing a bandana soon confronted me. My first instinct was to run, but I knew that this was not a viable option – I had to at least try to fight. Otherwise, my uselessness would be revealed and I might be expelled from the ship – or worse, marooned. Although, at the time it hadn't occurred to me that I would easily be able to swim off of the island. Alas, my mind had been made up: fight it was.

We entered combat, and I gauchely deflected his blows. I had a few very close encounters, and about thirty seconds in I was quite sure that he nicked my shoulder. However, by some miracle (in fact, I think Schmitty may have inadvertently tripped him) my adversary fell to the ground and his sword fell out of his grasp. Without hesitation, I drove my own cutlass into the man's gut. I watched, transfixed, as beautiful crimson blood poured from his wound.

Wentworth, who had just finished defeating his own challenger, turned to me in wonder and remarked, "You weren't lying when you said you were tougher than you looked."

I did not respond – was I not supposed to have killed him? But I didn't have the luxury of dwelling on these thoughts, for I barely had time to dodge an attack from another foe. I spun out of the way inelegantly and somehow managed to push him overboard, into the angry sea. I looked up at the helm to see Sparrow lazily fighting off opponent after opponent; at one point I even think I saw him bring his hand up to cover a yawn. I also noticed something very interesting: he didn't kill anyone. Well, not directly, at least. He somehow found a way to throw all of his assailants over the side of the ship.

Eventually, when we had caused enough damage to Redford's ship (Redford's friend's ship?), men stopped invading the Jewel and it became clear that we had won the battle.

"Victory is ours!" Gibbs announced triumphantly.

The rest of the crew raised their swords in the air and cheered boisterously. All save one of the Spritelies, who appeared to have lost a finger. I initially pitied the awkward lad, but the sentiment passed quickly. Plus, perhaps it was for the best: now, we would all have a way of telling the twins apart.

"Throw the dead into the water," Sparrow commanded solemnly. He seemed very bothered by the sight of the carnage, and I couldn't help but wonder why – surely he'd seen death before – surely he was used to it by now?

"And the wounded?" an extremely out-of-breath Emery questioned.

Gibbs and Sparrow looked at one another and seemed to reach an unfortunate understanding. "Overboard," Gibbs barked sadly, "We can't afford any 'indrances. Perhaps Redford and his men will double back for them."

The whole crew seemed rather grave following the short-winded celebration, but I couldn't understand why. We'd won, hadn't we? Why were they so preoccupied with the casualties? They mattered nothing – was it not normal to rejoice over the death of the enemy? I wanted to ask about it, but I decided that perhaps it was not the best idea. There seemed to be some sort of cultural disconnect and I certainly didn't want to bring attention to my foreign sensibilities.

After the ship was ridded of the bodies, Sparrow commanded, "Cassiopeia. Captain's quarters. Now." Without waiting for me to catch up, he turned abruptly on his heel and disappeared into his room. My heart tightened in my chest; this couldn't be good. Slowly, I followed him.

Once inside, he looked at me from his large, map-riddled desk and said, "Do you mind explaining to me why, pray tell, you felt it necessary to undermine me earlier today in front of the entire crew. Am I not your captain? Am I not in a position of – what's the word? Oh yes – authority? I'm curious to know why you deemed it appropriate to address me with such… impertinence."

"I'm very sorry, sir," I said sincerely (though I was not indeed sincere), "I didn't mean to disrespect you." I bent my head repentantly for added effect – the last thing I wanted to do was create a potentially hazardous situation for myself.

Sparrow reached across the desk with one dirty, bejeweled hand and lifted my chin roughly. "Y'know, love, I'm not nearly as foolish as my appearance may in fact suggest. Or maybe I am. But be that as it may, there's something you must get straight in your bonny little head right at this very instant: I'm keeping you around for one reason, and one reason only. There's something rather interesting about you, though I have yet to figure out just what exactly that is. I have a nagging suspicion that you just might come in handy at some point, and I'm never one to ignore my instincts, ey? Do not make the mistake of thinking you're useful as a pirate - or even as a person, for that matter. You're not here because you're a good sailor – to be fair, I haven't seen enough to make any judgments on that account just yet – and you're certainly not here because you're a good fighter. And also, I know you're not sorry. Please do us both a favor and don't even pretend to be."

"Are you angry with me?"

At this, he seemed to relax considerably and gave me a crooked grin. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, dearie. Mark my words, you would most definitely know if I were angry with ye."

"Then why call me in here?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

"You killed a man today… Men, even," he began absent-mindedly.

"Aye, sir," I said, thinking myself witty for using a bit of pirate slang, "Is that not what I was meant to do?"

"Meant to do, meant to do! How should I know what you're meant to do? Don't be ridiculous. No, no, I'm merely making an observation. I've seen men more than twice your size hold swords to the necks of others and waver in their intent. But you, you didn't even blink. The only person I've seen with so little regard for human life is – was? – Is, was, tricky things. In any case, as I was saying, the only man I've seen with so little regard for human life was Edward Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard." He paused, as if waiting for me to say something.

"Blackbeard, sir?"

"Aye, Blackbeard. The one and only."

"… And who exactly is Blackbeard, sir?"

"Who is Blackbeard?" he repeated, taken aback. For a moment, he seemed very confused, but it quickly passed. "No one, no one. Never mind that. All water under the bridge, as it were."

"Is that why you called me in here, then, Captain? To tell me that?"

"In a manner of speaking, I suppose. Just wanted to have a little chat, really. That's all. Tell me one more thing, love, where exactly do you hail from. I know Tortuga like the back of me hand and I know for a fact that you are most definitely not from the aforementioned area, as unfortunate as that may be, so please do not try to persuade me otherwise. If you were actually from Tortuga – I understand that you were in Tortuga, but that's entirely different – you'd never've left, what with the money you'd be raking in…"

"I'm from London, sir," I lied again, interrupting his tangent. I'd all but given up trying to follow his convoluted strings of words. I had of course learned to speak English (and many other languages – you'd never be able to seduce a sailor you couldn't communicate with) at a young age, but I wasn't accustomed to hearing it so frequently and so incessantly. Many of the pirates, with their grammatically deprived sentence structures and coarse tones, proved difficult to understand; but Sparrow, in particular, pushed the limits of my linguistic capabilities in a much different way.

"London. But of course – capital of the British Empire – the world, even. Big city. Well-guarded," he commented reminiscently. "Right then, I'd say we're just about done here. Oh, wait one more moment, I nearly forgot - you've never held a sword before, have you? Couldn't help but notice that you were gutting that poor wretch with absolutely atrocious technique. Perhaps you ought to try to get good ole Jack Tar to help you out, aye?"

"… Jack Tar?"

"Navy lad. Wentworth. My, my, girlie, you are a bit on the slow side of things, aren't you? Now, I'm quite sure that's all I had to say… I think… I hope. Go, go, scurry off." He flicked his hand in a motion to wave me away and turned his attention to his charts. I lingered for a moment, trying to comprehend what just happened and just how exactly I'd come into contact with a man so peculiar.

He looked up again. "You're still here. Why are you still here? Off you go! You've got work to do – I do so loathe the sight of bloodstains on my deck."

A/N: I'd love to know what you all think of Jack's portrayal - he's very fun to write, but also very difficult... It'd be great to get some feedback on his characterization! Thanks for reading!