Fight For The Right

9~ Marooned... Again

*Elizabeth's P.O.V*

I coughed up water as I hauled myself ashore, grateful to be on firm land after so long at sea. To me, the Isla de Muerta didn't really count as land. But this... this was paradise... even if it was in the middle of nowhere.

Jack walked onto the beach beside me, tearing off his bonds and staring back at the Black Pearl as it grew smaller and smaller. "That's the second time I've had to watch that man sail away with my ship," he muttered.

He began walking amongst the trees and I followed, somewhat mad at him. "But you were marooned on this island before, weren't you? So we can escape in the same way you did then."

"To what point and purpose young missy?" He whirled around to face me. "The Black Pearl is gone and unless you have a rudder and a lot of sails hidden in that bodice - unlikely - young Mr. Turner will be dead long before you can reach him."

"And what of my sister? I saw the looks you were giving her before you were thrown overboard!"

He looked startled but covered it up with a cough. "As for the young lass... I don't know. Unless she knows her way around pirates like Barbossa, she's as good as dead."

"Oh, Maddie knows her was around pirates, all right. Barbossa even offered her a place on the crew."

His eyes widened. "Really, a lass that young... a pirate with a crew of cursed men? Did she accept?"

"As far as I know of, no, she didn't."

"Then you should have nothing to worry about if she can handle herself."

He walked over to a tree trunk and knocked on it. I followed him around as he then took four steps and jumped up and down a few times - looking like a complete whacko, I might add. "But you're Captain Jack Sparrow," I pestered him. "You vanished from under the eyes of seven agents of the East India Trading Company. You sacked Nassau Port without even firing a shot. Are you the pirate I've read about or not?" He finally stopped moving and I faced him properly. "How did you escape last time?"

"Last time..." he sighed. "...I was here a grand total of three days, all right? Last time," he bent down and opened a secret cellar door under the sand. "The rumrunners used this island as a cache. Came by, and I was able to barter a passage off. From the looks of things, they've long been out of business. Probably... have your bloody friend Norrington to thank for that." With a grunt he climbed back out with a rum bottle in each hand.

I rolled my eyes. "So that's it then? That's the secret grand adventure of the infamous Jack Sparrow? You spent three days lying on a beach, drinking rum?!"

He shrugged, waving the bottles around, which I was so tempted to knock out of his hands. "Welcome to the Caribbean, love." He smirked and handed me a bottle.

I stared at it, fuming inside. The something stirred in my memory.

*

The sun had long since set and we'd put a mini bonfire together to keep way the worst of the chilly wind blowing through the palm trees. Each of us with a bottle of rum in hand, we danced around the fire, singing on old favourite of mine and I'm sure of Jack's.

"We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs. Drink up me 'earties yo ho! Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's' life for me."

"I love this song!" Jack shouted as we linked elbows and twirled around. "Really bad eggs! Ooh," he fell back on the sand and I soon sat down beside him. "When I get the Pearl back, I'm gonna teach it to the whole crew, we'll sing it all the time!" he said.

"And you'll be positively the most fearsome pirate in the Spanish Main." Of course, he lapped up the attention.

"Not just the Spanish Main, love," he replied. "The entire ocean. The entire wo'ld. Wherever we want to go, we'll go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails that's what a ship needs, but what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom."