Author's note: well, didn't think I really would continue that one, not since I'd left it hanging since February! But there you go, I finished the second "instalment" I'd planned – two down, one to go. I just hope really hard that Maia doesn't come off as a Mary Sue, because this chapter being a little longer than the first, we see a bit more of her. Did my best, though.

Thanks to ChaosandMayhem for the beta! :o]

Disclaimer: as usual, I'll bow to the Mouse (that'll hurt my back, you've got to bow really low to a mouse) and say everything belongs to them. Apart from Tortuga and the town of Cayona (Cayonne in French), the Gunner's Daughter and Maia. I'm just borrowing the rest like the naughty pirate I am. Arr.

Sensations

(First Time for Everything, Part Two)

The harsh light of day was far from kind to Tortuga. The whole island, laughing, loud and warm in the night became sleepy, silent and unbearably hot in the afternoon. Every street of every town then gave off the same pungent reek of mixed blood, sweat, rum, piss and garbage, which for some reason was far less appealing than it was in the night. The smack stuck nastily at the back of your throat and left a lingering tang on your tongue that only vast quantities of rum could wash away.

To Ragetti, though, it was heaven. Being able to properly smell, touch and taste Tortuga for the first time in a scope of near ten years alone was a very good reason for such enthusiasm. But the other, equally good motive was the fact that he and Pintel had just spent five days on a dinghy with nothing to eat or drink apart from three bottles of bad wine and a box of stale ship's biscuits.

"Still sayin' we could of et the dog."

All right, almost nothing to eat.

Ragetti shook his head.

"Yeh don' eat an instrument o' Providence."

The 'instrument of Providence' did not show any sign of agreement or disagreement on the subject and just kept trotting after them, the now useless key ring still dangling from his mouth making small clinking noises.

Pintel looked like he was too tired to argue, which was a first. Usually he never got tired of arguing.

He did let out a grunt that might have come out as a snicker had he been in a better shape. Ragetti sidled a glance at him.

"'Sides, we did get to Tortuga, din' we? We can eat and drink plenty 'ere."

"It's the middle of the bloody day. No one's gonna be awake enough teh –"

"We got to t–try."

It was a genuine stroke of luck that they had hit the right side of the island first. Even the dog was starting to look knackered, and he was the only one who had not been forced to scull and bale for five days. The sun was not quite as merciless as it had been at sea, but the burning feeling on your head, shoulders and everything down to your toes was hard to ignore.

Still, it was something to feel apart from the hunger and thirst, which had grown so strong over the last few days it felt to Ragetti like remnants of the curse.

Fortunately, the docks and streets around them were beginning to feel familiar to the one-eyed pirate, who was slowly but surely getting back his bearings. The south coast of Tortuga had not changed much over the years, and the high, still darkish façade of the Gunner's Daughter soon loomed into view.

"About bloody time, I tell yeh," Pintel muttered, his shoulders sagging a bit. The dog whimpered in agreement. Pintel threw him a look. The dog stared back.

"That mutt's an odd one," Ragetti heard him mutter.

"Tole ye, Providence," he retorted before knocking tentatively at the door. "Maia?" he whispered. "Yeh still there, girl?"

"Yeh're gonna hafta be louder than that if you want someone to hear ya," came Pintel's dry voice from his blind right side. When he turned to have a look, he spotted his old mate leaning against the wall with his arms folded, giving him a milder version of his usual annoyed glare.

"Yeah, but I d–don't want to wake up everybody. Just her."

Pintel shook his head with a snort, and the next moment Ragetti was shoved aside as the older pirate rapped once or twice at the door and called, "Oi! Anybody alive and kickin' in 'ere?"

For a couple of seconds the only answer was a low sort of growl from the other side of the street behind a pair of shutters with peeling paint, the "Ah, shut up already …" kind that comes from adding loud noises to an already ear-splitting hangover. But then Ragetti's ears perked up when he heard a soft, hurried patter from the other side of the door, followed by a slight creak as it opened.

Maia stood in the half-open door, agape. Her hand on the doorframe was shaking slightly.

"I thought I'd recognised that voice," she managed to say after a little while, her own voice not quite steady. "Come on in."

Pintel crossed the threshold, and Ragetti sidled behind him out of habit. The high common room was empty and almost silent, dust flying in the rays of light falling from the windows at first floor level. The familiar smell of rum and wine hung in the air, along with that of the dusty, old wood of the walls. And of course everywhere there was Maia's scent, a mix of powder, cheap perfume and something spicy and unknown that made him realise only now how much he had actually missed it.

Maia still seemed quite stunned to see them. So much, in fact, that she didn't see the dog and almost smashed the door into his nose. The sound of the iron keys banging against the wood made her jump a little and she looked down at the floor, where the dog sat and managed to stare up at her reprovingly. She blinked.

"He with you?"

"Been followin' us fer a bit now, so I reckon ye can say that," muttered Pintel. "Bit quiet, innit?" he added, looking around. "The place used to be open not jus' in the night. What changed?"

"Things," Maia replied evasively, gesturing to a table and chairs. Ragetti sank gratefully into one. His legs felt like those weird-looking jellyfishes you could sometimes see drifting in the ocean on a clear day.

"People are more wary these days. They're sayin' there's a man what wants to 'clean the Caribbean'. Someone new. An' they're saying he gets it done."

Pintel snickered. "Another silly bastard as wants to be all important-like. Tha's what's getting everybody all worked up for?"

"They say the cells in Port Royal are always empty," Maia continued, her voice low and maybe quavering just a tiny bit. Ragetti peered at her, puzzled. Pintel frowned.

"That's no reason teh –"

"Because they keep emptying 'em."

She spoke over her shoulder, on her way to the kitchen, and a cold wind seemed to blow right through Ragetti, who couldn't help but shiver. He wondered if Pintel had felt it too; he did not appear particularly shaken, but he did shift uneasily on his chair. Neither one looked the other in the eye for a few seconds. Even if neither had actually felt it around his neck, the noose had really been too close. And they had not yet put enough distance between it and themselves to feel really comfortable about getting away with their lives.

Maia was back quickly with two bowls of soup that had lumps of a nameless nature floating on the surface, and a big loaf of bread that might have seen better days – and just possibly better weeks. But Ragetti soon found out that if you smashed it against the table and put the remaining chunks into the soup, it actually bettered it. Thickened it. Whatever it did, it felt good.

In fact, it felt so good that he was starting to get a bit drowsy. It wasn't until his head slipped from his hand and hit the table with a painful thud that he realised he hadn't got a real, good night's sleep in weeks.

It's hard enough to sleep in jail. But it's something else entirely to sleep when you know for certain that, on a given date, you're going to walk up some steps, put your head inside the noose of a rough hemp rope, and wait for the ground to give way and your neck to snap like some twig a kid can break in two – or worse, wait for your throat close up to the point that you couldn't get any air down and you jerked and twisted but in the end your face and hands and feet turned red and purple and you ceased to move altogether.

And then they strung up your body at the entrance of Port Royal to show newcomers how they dealt with pirates in those parts. Certainly a good deal for all the carrion eaters of the bay – bird and fish.

If they hadn't figured out a way out of the cell, the carrion would have been them by now …

Sound began to seep back through and Ragetti gave a start. Bugger. He'd fallen fast asleep right there with his head on the table. Though he was no longer on his chair, he could still feel the marks the strips of wood had left on his left cheek.

He opened his one bleary eye and realised with sleepy surprise that he was being supported against someone. Someone who was soft and round and warm and smelled of spices.

"You can go to Suzy's room. She left a while ago, I haven't found anyone to replace her yet."

"Thanks, ole girl. Think yeh can manage to drag this skinny lazy arse all the way to yer bed?"

"Mind yer own business an' go to sleep. You look like hell."

Ragetti vaguely heard Pintel reply something equally pleasant before his ears shut down again, followed by the rest of him. He did not so much fall asleep than drop, like a rock into murky water.

When he woke up, he spent what seemed a long time lying completely still and trying to scrape together parts of memories that didn't add up. As, for instance, what he was doing stark naked in a snug, comfy bed with somewhat familiar-smelling sheets. With an aftertaste of something vaguely meat-ish on the back of his tongue, when he knew for certain he hadn't eaten meat in ages.

"You sleep like the dead now," a low, gentle voice whispered from somewhere in the room. Even after all these years Maia's voice remained unchanged, husky and low-pitched with the slightest trace of an accent from her home country.

Ragetti shifted uncomfortably and winced at her choice of words, his eye still closed.

"Aw, don't say that. I wos just real tired, is all."

"But it's true. You used to toss 'n turn all the time."

There was the merest hint of a smile now in Maia's voice, and Ragetti opened his eye for confirmation.

He saw her seated at the small table, pouring over some papers with a quill in her hand. The room was entirely dark except for a small oil lamp on the table, the light of which was probably just enough for her to see whatever she was writing.

She was indeed wearing a slight smile.

He had seen a painting, once, in one of the huge houses they'd raided in search for the gold Aztec coins; there was a woman on it, sitting in a big, comfy-looking armchair and reading a book. The woman hadn't really looked like Maia, but it had put Ragetti in mind of her – her general figure, the way she moved (sure, people in paintings didn't move, but ‪…), how she'd look at him and he could never figure out whether it was a mocking look or something else … How his hands were always full when he put them on her …

He must have stayed a while in front of that painting, because then he'd had to run out with everybody else, and he would have been the only one empty-handed if Pintel hadn't dumped a funny-looking vase – or was it an urn? – in his arms before they reached the Pearl.

The sudden noise of a bottle crashing into the wall outside made him jump right out of his skin.

Huh. Where was he again?

Tortuga. Maia's place. Right.

"What're yeh doin'?"

Her quill stood still for a few seconds above the sheet of paper. "Sums. The Gunner's Daughter's mine now, so it's up to me ter keep track of the money."

A thought sneaked its way through the back door into Ragetti's mind, and he grinned.

"Sums … That's Pinters' old nightmare, that is …"

His memory of the previous days came back so suddenly that he instinctively sat up and looked around in search of his clothes.

"Say, where's Pintel? Still sleepin'?"

"Oh yes." She scribbled something, then turned her head back to face him with a smile. "Still asleep in Suzie's old room and snoring to high heaven. I checked on him 'bout an hour ago. Didn' he used teh be …" She paused, tapping thoughtfully her quill against her chin and throwing him a sideways look. "… Chubbier?"

"Aye," Ragetti said uncertainly, "I s'ppose. It was all bread an' water in gaol, but … t'were no worse th'n wot we et on that ol' Navy ship so –"

She had stood up and pushed her chair at some point, and he was beginning to find it increasingly difficult to keep track of the thoughts in his head and the words they ended up as when she was walking that way toward him, her hips swinging under the many petticoats she always wore.

When she gazed at him, however, there was no trace upon her face (devoid for once of any make-up) of her usual teasing smile, the one that never failed to make his skin feel a bit too tight. There was actually something pensive in her eyes as she sat on the edge of the bed and let her hand idly trace some of the faded old scars on his chest.

It tickled. Among many other pleasant sensations.

"Yeh're a right toast rack now," she whispered. "Even more th'n I remembered …"

Her fingers were warm. Ragetti squirmed a bit under the covers, suddenly very much aware of where his clothes were – or rather, where they were not.

It had been ten years. At the very least.

Then very long years.

"I 'eard you was dead."

Ragetti shook himself out of it. "Wha'?"

Maia was not really looking at him – not in the eye, at any rate – but it did give the impression that she was staring straight through him. It was a bit unnerving.

"I 'eard all the Black Pearl's cursed crew had danced the hempen jig. An' I remembered the last time I saw ya."

"Oh."

The last Ragetti had seen of Maia had been a red, angry face and a door slammed right into his nose. He'd tried to explain about the curse – how it showed under moonlight and everything – and had taken the long way around to get to his point: he needed the Aztec gold coin he'd given her a couple of months ago.

Well, Maia had not only reacted as though he had slapped her – but she had been awfully difficult to convince, too. Especially since that particular night had been so cloudy. In fact, he was not at all certain that he'd actually convinced her. She had tossed him the gold coin and tossed him out next.

Ten years had passed since then and they hadn't set foot in Tortuga again, except to allow other crewmen to retrieve their own share of the Aztec gold. It was amazing how much of it had ended on the island. It was generally held as common knowledge that Tortuga was the place where your money was never wasted, but having to track the coins one by one really drove the point home that most of the pirates' loot came through the taverns and brothels of the island at least once.

"You was tellin' the truth, then."

"Aye. Curse's gone, now, though."

She had stopped running her fingers all over him at some point, as unobtrusively as she had begun, and although that meant he could think more clearly it also meant the warm, tight feeling that stretched all the way down to his toes was gone. After awkwardly fingering the edge of the sheet for a bit he asked, eager for a change of subject, "Didja get me letters?"

During the years – and in spite of their last meeting – he'd collected bits of stuff here and there to send her: small shells, little stones that looked interesting, pieces of paper covered in weird handwritings that he could barely recognise were not English but were elaborate and full of intriguing loops and curls … Pintel would agree once in a while to be bothered to write her name and address on the parcels while Ragetti hoped that they reached their destination.

Maia's face shone with a smile that was all the warmer because she'd looked so sober the minute before.

"Yeah," she said with something like fondness in her voice as her eyes found his again. "You never signed, but I reckoned it was you."

"I said I'd send letters. Didn' say I'd write 'em." He shifted slightly uncomfortably. "'Sides, I dunno how to spell me name."

"I could teach ya."

He stared at her, cocking his head on the side and appraising her sincerity. "Really?"

She inched closer, close enough for him to realise just how low her neckline was, and just how full of Maia Maia's dress was.

"Really." Her grin became The Grin. The one he had missed so much all those years. The one that meant things were taking a very interesting turn. "Taught you stuff once, didn't I."

Had the noonday sun risen all of a sudden, or had the curse made him forget that the night was always that hot in Tortuga? Ragetti wondered for the first time in ten years whether his cheeks were really on fire or whether they just felt like it.

Ye gods. He'd almost forgotten how utterly great this felt.

"A–aye," he stammered, his heart – which to all intents and purposes had stopped beating for twelve years – hammering wildly in his thin chest. "You def'n'ly could do it again."

"I definitively could." His one eye was full of Maia's skin now, and his ears were full of Maia's husky, low voice, and his head was swimming from her heady perfume …

But his hands still clutched the sheets tight.

"I don't have any gold," he said thickly.

Her shoulder flashed bare as her dress fell off in one smooth gesture made perfect by years of practice. Her warm weight was all over him and her thick dark hair almost curtained her smile. Ragetti forgot to breathe.

"I'll put it on your bill, then."

And then his arms were full of Maia, full of her skin and curves and heat and this time he could taste her and touch her and drink in the sight of her and drown in her scent … And her hair was slightly rough where it had gone grey and there were lines around her eyes, and her body had aged with the years and there was a sort of hungry despair in the way she moved.

But her way of being Maia, her way of being there with him and touching him and loving him as though all of this was real … and as though he was the only one, always had been and always would be … and as though she was the only one too, and they were the only human beings left on Earth and on the wide sea …

As though all this – everything they were sharing, everything that Ragetti lacked the words to describe – was not just a perk in an otherwise bleary job …

Nothing of that had changed. Maia was still … Maia. Passionate and playful and relentless and ravenous and warm and full.

There were places he visited that night that he had never dared to touch before. There was an unrelenting intensity and hunger he didn't know he had that lasted them well after the grey light of dawn had seeped through the shutters. There were words, whispered fiercely and hesitatingly in turns, that he wasn't even sure that he was uttering until she swallowed them all in a wild kiss.

The things they did – the words they said – the feelings rushing through his body like fire –

After feeling dead for twelve years, and coming so close to the real thing so little time ago –

It was like being born again.

All notion of where they were and what time it was had well flown out the window when they finally collapsed one on the other, a tangle of limbs and sweaty gooseflesh skin, their breaths coming out ragged and uneven.

It seemed that years passed before one of them spoke.

"Could yeh, then?"

Ragetti felt movement, and the next second, Maia's bright dark eyes were blinking tiredly at him. He realised with a jolt that the voice had been his, and that he had voiced the train of thoughts he had been idly following.

Before he could wonder whether it had sounded stupid, Maia's lips stretched into a grin and her eyes seemed to gain focus.

"Teach you to write, yeh mean?"

He watched her arm on his chest rise and fall with the rhythm of his breathing for a little while, then returned her gaze, feeling his ears turn hot. "And read, too. Just – just a bit."

His side tingled pleasantly when she gently traced shapes that might be letters, or just illiterate caresses. She shifted closer to him, yielding flesh against his bony chest, and he felt her warm breath on the hollow of his shoulder.

"Aye," she whispered. "I could do that."

"Really?"

She raised her head, tangled hair falling over her face and shoulders, and looked him in the eye for a few seconds. Then she seemed to make up her mind, and retrieved her own arms and legs from the mess of bodies they made in the middle of the bed.

Ragetti's eye followed her as she walked to her table, gloriously naked and looking quite comfortable with it. In spite of his exhaustion – or perhaps because of exactly what had made him so worn-out in the first place – he couldn't help but grow warm all over as a very clear memory arose with every single square inch of bare skin he saw. Every tiny wobbly bit bore the invisible print of his hands.

When she returned to bed, she was carrying a quill, a small bottle of ink and a small, worn-looking leather-bound book. Ragetti could count the books he had seen in his life on the fingers of his hands, but he'd be damned if he didn't recognise this book. Probably literally.

"That's the Bible, tha' is," he said reverently, then felt his eye widen when she opened it at the first page and dipped her quill carefully in the ink. "Wha' – what're ya doin'?"

"Teaching," Maia said pointedly, then proceeded to lower her quill and trace a few lines on the whitish paper. Ragetti cringed inwardly, half-expecting a bolt of lightening to strike.

"That's an 'R'. It's the first letter of your name."

He stared at it. Squinted at it. He even took out his wooden eye, rubbed it as hard as he could and popped it back into his orbit.

"Looks like a nob lady with a big dress." He turned the idea of his name beginning with a dress-wearing lady over in his head, and settled with, "Right."

He looked up at her. "There's more after that, right?"

"That's right. Now, after that, you've got a funny little mountain with a line halfway to the top. That's an 'A' …"

They went over the seven letters of his name, one by one, and by the end Ragetti stared at the little ink lines on the holy paper.

"Your turn, now."

And Maia handed him the quill.

It was a painful, embarrassing business, which Ragetti accomplished with the tip of his tongue out while Maia gave him hints and instructions, but in the end he put away the quill and grinned.

"So … That's me name. Me own name, right there."

"Aye."

"Wrote it down all by meself."

"That's … right."

"On a – Bible." His stomach sank, but he looked around hopefully. "And nothin' bad's happened to me. That's –"

"You've crossed your 'E' the wrong way and you've forgotten to dot your 'I'," Maia interrupted, not unkindly. Ragetti grinned sheepishly, his ears warm again, and let his eye wander all over her, too tired to do anything else.

When they had found their clothes – the search lasted a long time – he made to give her the Bible back, but she waved him off.

"No, you keep it. Reckon you'll find more use of it than me anyway."

Ragetti put it in his coat and nodded his thanks, a bit too tongue-tied to speak. This was the first time in absolute ages someone given him something – given, not lent or entrusted him with. A real gift, with nothing expected in return.

Now he wished he could do the same. Not just give her money for – for her company.

"So," he began hesitatingly as he opened the bedroom door. "You liked my letters?"

Her tired face broke into a broad grin. He decided he liked the gap between her incisors quite a lot.

"Yeah, I loved them. Nobody ever sends me odds and ends like you do. They're … treasurable."

"That's not a real word," came a muffled grumpy voice behind them.

Pintel sat at his favourite table, his chair tipped back and his feet on the table. If he hadn't just talked, Ragetti would have thought him asleep. He gave a shrug while his uncle opened his eyes and glanced their way, looking slightly exasperated.

"Well," Ragetti muttered, "it'd be nice if it was."

He caught a smile from Maia as Pintel shook his head.

It was the end of the afternoon, and the girl who tended to the kitchen at Tortuga's most rowdy hours wasn't there yet, so Maia disappeared into the next room and came back with cheese, old ham and a better-looking loaf of bread than their last meal. This time, she joined them and ate heartily, probably feeling just as famished as Ragetti felt. Pintel eyed the both of them with a weary sort of sarcasm, but apart from muttering, "Well – aren't yeh two hungry …" he made no other comment about the vast amount of time they'd spent in Maia's room.

Apparently, Pintel had spent it roaming around Tortuga and collecting rumours about the Black Pearl's latest berth – somewhere around the Pelegosto Islands, not very far from the east coast of Jamaica. He had tried to barter a place for him and Ragetti on every ship that left Tortuga and found only one ship – a shabby-looking sloop – whose captain had wanted a pair of mutinous former Pearls. Apparently, the rumours of the curse seemed just as unkillable as they had once been; besides, the captain didn't want to get near the islands. The Black Pearl was said to have run aground there, all her crew gone, a ghost ship.

It probably had not helped him in his search that the dog had followed him everywhere, key ring still clinking and staring up at people. Ragetti suspected that he'd tried to get rid of the "mangy flea-eaten little runt", as Pintel called him, but had obviously failed.

"So you're leavin'?" Maia asked, savouring her cup of rum to the last drop.

"Aye," said Pintel, who had drained his in one gulp. "Looks like no other ship'll have us, anyway. 'Sides, it's been home for such a long time …"

His voice trailed off, but Ragetti could easily complete the thought; he had been thinking along similar lines for some time. He could almost feel the Pearl call to him as the Aztec gold once did. If Pintel didn't think he was barmy for feeling that way, then maybe it wasn't as daft as it sounded.

"Anyroad, like as not we'll find a way off the ship if old Red Dan don't want teh go too near the Pelegosto," Pintel said, wiping his mouth on his grimy sleeve. "Then it's orf to sea, and I'd like teh see your bloody Company finding us in the middle of the bleedin' ocean."

"Just you be careful, Master Pintel," Maia said sharply. "Maps make the world smaller, and I hear that this Beckett man owns a lot of maps." Then she turned to Ragetti, something softening very lightly in her eyes, and added, "You – take care of yerself too. Wouldn't do for ya to get yerself hanged with all the gold you owe me."

Ragetti's ears went hot again, and he just nodded, feeling a stupid grin make its way across his face.

He stole a last look at Maia when they walked out of the Gunner's Daughter, standing in the doorway and clutching her thin shawl around her shoulders despite the warmth of the afternoon sun. Then he turned and scramble after Pintel, trying not to hear the little voice at the back of his mind whispering stupid and dangerous things and asking stupid questions. Such as why on earth he was leaving.

The small weight of the Bible in his coat, bumping against his ribcage with every step, was almost reassuring – like a little shred of certainty of avoiding eternal damnation down in the hot place. He'd have to finish learning how to read to be able to decipher the whole book.

He really wanted to go to Heaven when he kicked the bucket.

Hell he already knew.

"Yer 'olding it upside down," Pintel muttered from his place at the oars, some time after they'd stolen a small boat from the sleeping crew off the Pelegosto islands and rowed away as fast as they could, the dog comfortably settled in the prow.

"Oh. I knew that."

Ragetti turned the book, though, when Pintel wasn't looking.

Yay, my first sort-of-sex scene! Which I'm unsure of, by the way. I'll let you pirate wenches (and lads, if there are) be the judges of that. But I wanted to hint at the "spoken like a lover" scene in AWE, and I wanted to write a link between their escape in Port Royal and the moment we see them in their dinghy in DMC, where they seem to be looking for the Black Pearl. I wrote my 400-word drabble Alive using some of the stuff that's here and thinking this second part would never see FanfictionDotNet, which goes to show that … Well, I don't rightly know what it goes to show, but it does :o)

The little conversation just after Ragetti manages to write his name has, I realised after I wrote it, a mirror of sorts in Terry Pratchett's A Hat Full of Sky; it wasn't my intention, but there you go – a guy is really pleased with himself for having written his name down and a woman reminding him that it wasn't perfect. Go read The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and The Wintersmith (and any of the Discworld series novels); you'll have a great time anyway, and it explains the fear of the Nac Mac Feegles of the written word magic :D Terry Pratchett is a fantastic author.

Still one chapter left to go, if I ever write it. I may take my time …

Bel :o]