FicWad

I crossed my arms across to keep the much-too-big dress up over my shoulders. I did my best not to look at any of the men sitting at the table, but it was rather hard not to since they were all staring at me. The walk by the table seemed to last for eternity. I didn't think I would ever be safe from all those evil, glittering pirate eyes.

The eyes were certainly not friendly either. Most were sparkling malevolently in the light and others were laughing at me. I felt ridiculous. I was their clown; something to laugh at and humiliate. I picked up my pace so I was following Ragetti a bit closer. Feeling my heart smashing against my rib cage, I asked, "Where's the captain?"

Before Ragetti had a chance to answer, a commanding voice said from the far side of the room, "I'm right here. Come here, missy. Ragetti says the dress is too big, but I think it should fit you alright." Barbossa's words made me clench my teeth. I was on very bad terms with Barbossa at the moment. First, he had stolen my engagment ring. Now, he was humiliating me in front of the whole crew.

When I was about two feet in front of Barbossa, Ragetti and Pintel left my sides to return to the rest of the crew. I was sad to see them go. They seemed to be as friendly as it got when it came to pirates. Besides, I thought I could trust them. They both seemed sincere. Barbossa, on the other hand, was about impossible to predict. He had a sarcastic sense of humor and was rather unpredictable. Like in the current situation, I had no idea what to expect from him.

Holding the dress up with one hand, I lifted the skirt up a bit from the floor with the other one to show Barbossa just how long it was. Feeling rather indignant, I said a-matter-of-factly, "It doesn't fit, see? It's much too low and much too long. I don't see why you couldn't just have believed me earlier when I told Ragetti it was too big."

Barbossa tilted his head back and studied me carefully. I flinched under his gaze and wished I was invisible for a few minutes. Finally, Barbossa replied, "It doesn't look too big to me. It's a fine dress. You should be happy to have such a nice thing." Um...what? My mind started spinning at Barbossa's remark. He wasn't actually going to make me wear this awful thing all throughout dinner now, was he? There was no way I could stand sitting with the crew in a dress much too long with a skimpy cut.

Barbossa suddenly took two long strides towards me and pulled me up against him. He gripped my hip with one strong hand to keep me from moving and then placed his other hand on top of the one that was keeping my dress up. Unable to move and too shocked to say anything, I just kind of stared with wide eyes as Barbossa removed my hand from my chest.

Immediately, the dress fell to a point where it was almost obscene. Unable to keep my hatred inside any longer, I spat at Barbossa's feet and hissed, "You're cruel. And evil. How dare you touch me like that?" At my accusations, the rest of the crew let out loud howls of laughter. That only made me blush a brighter shade of pink.

Barbossa leaned down and whispered in my ear, "I'm the captain here. I'll do as I please, lassie. You should've known what you were gettin' yourself into when you came aboard the Black Pearl. Too late for you to reconsider any of that now." With that said, Barbossa pushed me forwards towards the table. Hating everything and everyone around me, I caught myself from falling just in time.

Looking around, I saw an empty chair in front of me. Deciding that there was nothing else to do at this point, I took a deep breath and sank down on the chair. Barbossa watched me carefully and then turned to the crew, "Now that yer all here, go ahead and dig in. Make sure the girl gets something to eat. We don't want a smelly corpse down here, do we now?"

I could pretty much imagine myself lying as a dead corpse here or locked away in that little cabin I had been kept in earlier. Regardless though, I figured I'd better go ahead and eat. If I didn't, Barbossa or someone else would make a big deal out of it probably. So even though I wasn't hungry, I took some of the bread and something that looked like a little muffin. There was no proof that it was or tasted like a muffin, but it did happen to be the same shape as one.

As soon as the men had been told they could eat, hell broke loose. People were grabbing and arguging over dishes, food was flying everywhere, and I even got elbowed in the face. Frowning, I attempted to keep to myself as I managed to get the bread and muffin-like substance down somehow. It wasn't easy to eat it. The food didn't taste very good and by the time I was done eating, I was stuffed.

I wasn't quite sure what to do now that I was done. Something told me that it would be best just to keep my mouth closed in this situation. As I sat wondering what to do next, a hand suddenly grabbed at me. Fingers closed over the top of my dress and pulled it down. Shocked, I merely sat there for a minute.

Then I broke out of my paralysis. Indignation, fury, and fear ripped through my body. I slapped the man's hand away from my chest, stood up as quickly as I could and then started running away towards the cabin. I wasn't really sure where else to go. Nowhere was safe anymore. Everyone was out to get me. At least, that's what it seemed like.

I had only taken five steps when I tripped on the hem of the dress. I went flying forwards and hit my head on the ground with a loud smack. It hurt quite badly. I saw stars for a few moments, but luckily, I was able to keep my head. Hearing footsteps coming after me, I struggled to my feet once more and tore off back down to the cabin.

After what seemed like a very long time but was probably only a few minutes, I reached my destination. Without any further thought, I burst into the cabin, slammed the door shut, and turned the lock. It probably isn't the smartest thing to lock yourself in a room, but it was the only thing that would make me feel safe right now. Well, as safe as I could feel anyways. I didn't think it would be possible for me to ever feel safe with a band of rowdy, unpredictable pirates.

I highly suspected someone to come banging on the door to my cabin, but surprisingly enough, nothing happened. Instead, I was left completely alone. Being left alone like this was almost eerie. It seemed strange that the pirates would just leave me alone now. I wondered what had become of the guy who had grabbed my dress. I hoped he would be punished.

Not sure of what else to do, I inspected the room for somewhere to sleep. Surprisingly enough, I found a small bed in the corner that I must have missed before. Feeling very tired out, I decided that sleep was my best option at this point. Wanting to get out of Barbossa's damned dress as soon as possible, I quickly stripped down and threw the dress in a pile far across the room. I wished for a nightgown to wear, but since I obviously hadn't packed one, I decided to just sleep in my undergarments. I slowly laid down in the bed and rolled onto my stomach. The bed was rather hard and the blanket not so warm, but it was all I had. In less than a moment, I was asleep.

~ ~ ~ ~

When I awoke next, I was cold and shivering. The only things covering my body were my bra, panties, and the thin blanket. I pulled the blanket up tighter against my chest and opened my eyes blearily. As soon as they were open, a voice sounded from somewhere to my right, "I figured it wouldn't be too long before you woke up again."

The voice shocked the crap out of me and I almost jumped a foot. Heart pounding in my chest, I twisted my head to the right to see Barbossa standing above my bedside. He had one hand on his hip and the other hand by his side. For some reason, Barbossa standing above my bed like that made me feel very nervous. Doing the only thing I could, I pleaded, "Please don't hurt me."

I wasn't stupid; I knew there were lots of things Barbossa could do to hurt me in a situation like this. Glancing over his shoulder, I could see that the door to the cabin was shut. Barbossa could do whatever he wanted to me and nobody would ever know. Hell, I could even be murdered here and probably nobody would give a damn about my death.

Surprisingly enough, Barbossa's gruff voice was rather gentle when he spoke again, "Nobody here is gonna hurt you, lassie. I really should be apologizing to you for earlier." Barbossa tilted his head downwards in a gesture of asking for forgiviness as he said, "Some of the crew members can be a bit on the unpredictable side sometimes. Ya never know what yer going to find from them. I should also be apologizing for my own behavior as well. I've been treatin' you rotten, no doubt about that."

Barbossa's sudden change in mood and attitude caught me by surprise. I started at him with a calculating expression on my face. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect out of him. She did know one thing though; pirates could never be trusted. You could never expect a pirate to keep his promise and if you had a bad feeling about something in your gut, things were probably not right.

Right now, I had a bad feeling in my gut. Frowning, I looked up at Barbossa suspiciously and said, "Why bother apologizing to me? Why bother with me at all? You could toss me overboard if you really wanted to." I suggested this merely because I thought that might be a good option at this point. Life here on this ship wasn't really worth living if I was going to continue to be humiliated.

"Yer makin' me feel even worse, ya know," Barbossa said with a sigh. He sat down on the wooden floor so he was at eye level with me. Locking gazes with me, he said, "I'm not gonna throw ya overboard or anything like that. I'm not so cruel as that. Yer goin' to be safe here. Ya just have to have a little faith and trust."

Faith and trust? I stared at Barbossa with amazement. Did he honestly expect me to trust a pirate? If he did, then he was just plain stupid. No way was I going to be trusting any pirate. Screwing up my eyes, I gave Barbossa a funny look and said, "Why are you suddenly being nice to me now? Why did you seem to hate me before?"

I wanted answers. I was certainly going to need a lot of them before I would be trusting Barbossa or anyone on this ship for that matter. Barbossa, of course, decided to ignore my question. Instead, he looked up and down the bed I was lying on and said, "Yer obviously cold. I suppose yer used to fluffy pillows and lots of blankets, aye?"

Not sure if he was making fun of me or not, I just looked at him without acknowledging the question. When I didn't answer, Barbossa went on, "Here, you can have my coat." He undid the button to it and held it out to me. I hesitated before taking it. However, I really was cold and so I decided to take it. My hand brushed against Barbossa's as we exchanged the item. A strange feeling went through my body at the touch. I was getting a very bad gut feeling about this.