Sam Carter and the Savage Pirates (sam/jack) PG-13
I wrote this little tale for majorsamfan, after she won me in the last Sweet Charity auction. She's given her blessing to post this, and I'm rather proud of it, so I hope you enjoy it. Cracktastic pirate action! I know the custom is to write space pirates for SG-1, but I went with the sort who sail the seven seas. Entertainment, pure and simple. Settle in with a cup of grog!
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Category: AU, humor, romance, crackfic-lite
Rating: PG-13 for a little language
A/N: Drawing inspiration from A Princess Bride, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! by Gideon Defoe, and all the various pirate romance novels I’ve read over my life. All in good fun!
Sam Carter and the Savage Pirates
Written by surreallis
Thanks to shutthef_up for looking it over a few months ago before I painstakingly copied it all by hand into a paper journal. ;)
++
Once upon a time, a woman named Samantha Carter decided, in the way all good women who aspire to be written of in romance novels decide, to disguise herself as a boy and procure employment upon a sailing vessel destined for the New World. Of course, as is the way of such things, the events precipitating this monumental decision were a letter from her father, who was already settled in the New World and waiting, sick, for her arrival; and her desire for a stealthy escape from her fiancé', Jonas, a decorated officer in the Royal Navy who drank a bit too much and sometimes thought he was God.
Unfortunately, the Royal Navy did not accept women as sailors, nor would any passenger vessel take her anywhere without a substantial fare. Or a less than desirable 'agreement' between a scurvy, toothless captain and her virtue. Alright, 'virtue' was stretching it a little, but still...
You can see her dilemma.
So she cut her hair short--but not too short--and she dressed in baggy clothing, rubbed dirt upon her fair cheeks, and she tip-toed past a napping, snoring Jonas in order to venture down to the harbor to seek her fortune.
It was a busy day at the Marina, with several vessels about to set forth. Two were naval vessels and so she had to forego them. Surely their crews would be familiar with Jonas and would notify him straightaway that she had lost that loving feeling. Woe.
Another two were passenger vessels, and she attempted to gain employment as a navigator or in steerage, but they were put off by her lean, boyish figure and besides which she had no rum. This was apparently an important due to pay in the Union of Navigators and Steerage Persons, and she'd neglected to stuff her sack with a bottle or two.
There were several trade vessels to deal with, and their crews were lowly and much less driven to find quality help. In a word, they had to take what they could get. Namely, Sam Carter, cabin boy extraordinaire.
It was in this odd way that she met Captain Jack O'Neill and his band of savage pirates!
+
Captain Jack was having a bad day.
He was an engaging man with a lively, fantastic sense of humor, if he did say so himself, and yet none of the prospective cabin boys he had interviewed had seemed to get his jokes. This was an important skill set for a cabin boy to have, especially as Captain Jack's exquisite humor seemed to be all but lost on his regular crew. His first mate, Teal'c, never seemed to laugh at anything, while the cook and steerage officer, Bra'tac, just looked at Jack as if he were three sheets to the wind. Daniel, his snarky navigator and all around know-it-all, only seemed to laugh when Jack slipped on the wet deck and went ass over teakettle into the fishing nets.
He didn't always take on a cabin boy as it could be quite the risk. You see, he and his band of poor merchant traders had a secret. Once they got out into the open sea they pulled down the colors of their native country and instead hoisted the Jolly Roger. They were PIRATES!
Granted, the last time they'd actually killed anyone for booty had been... well, never, but Daniel could pester anyone until they gave up their goods voluntarily just so he'd go away, and Teal'c could be really, really IMPOSING. And they all carried shiny, sharp swords and daggers. You couldn't be a pirate if you weren't properly geared up, after all.
This voyage, however, they were setting forth for the New World. It was said to be a rich world and the masses were converging on the new land with all their wealth. A pirate had to get while the gettin' was good. And a voyage that long needed a cabin boy to swab the decks and pour the rum. And maybe to laugh at Captain Jack's jokes, because a good joke unlaughed at was like a bottle of rum poured into the sea: just a crying shame.
He interviewed several likely candidates, including an 80 year-old man and a boy with a very promising peg-leg, but to no avail. He was growing quite frustrated and about to give up when one more prospect stepped up to his table in the tavern.
"My name is Sam Carter," said the lad in a rather gruff, odd voice, and Captain Jack looked up, up, up into big blue eyes.
"Aren't you a little tall... and old... for a cabin boy?"
Sam frowned. "Old? I'm only... er, 17 years old."
Jack wasn't born yesterday. And this lad definitely wasn't born 17 years ago. Still... he looked capable enough. "What do you know how to do?"
The lad tilted his smooth-cheeked head (did he really just think that, Jack wondered?) and thought about it. "I know navigation, steerage, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, black-smithing, metallurgy, defense against the dark arts, jedi mind control, moonshining, calligraphy, and animal husbandry."
Jack stared at him. (she's trying to be a boy, remember?)
"Oh," he added, pointing at Jack for emphasis. "And I don't cook."
Jack considered him for a moment. "That's all well and good, but what about jokes?"
"Jokes?" Sam repeated, looking a little vexed.
"Yes, as in... do you like them?"
"I can learn a few jokes if you insist."
"I do not insist. I need to know if you find MY jokes funny. I'd rather not have competition, thanks."
Sam lifted his eyebrows. "Something tells me, sir, that it wouldn't be much of a competition."
Jack grinned, pleased, and then suspicion filled him. "Hey..."
Sam glanced upwards and whistled innocently.
"Why don't pirates do well in school?" Jack demanded.
Sam looked confused. "What?"
"Why don't pirates do well in school?"
Sam regarded him suspiciously. "Is this some sort of a joke?"
"I don't know, is it? You tell me."
Sam narrowed his eyes. "I don't know, why don't pirates do well in school?"
Jack joyfully expelled the punchline. "Because they only know one letter: Arrrrrrrr!"
Sam blinked at him. And then the corners of his mouth wavered, tugged upwards, and then pulled tight.
Jack jumped to his feet. "Ah HA! You smiled! You smiled at my joke! I saw it!"
"I did not!" Sam protested. "It was a stupid joke!"
"You did! You did!" Jack crowed. "Don't try to deny it! I saw it."
Sam grumbled sullenly but finally admitted that, yes, he had maybe, possibly, before his good sense had kicked in, smiled at Jack's joke.
And thus our cleverly disguised Sam was hired onto Jack's pirate ship, and their tale began.
++
Life as a cabin boy was not very splendiferous. In fact, it was quite irritating. Sam dutifully swabbed the decks and mended the sails, and in the evenings she had to pour the rum and endure the drunken antics of Captain Jack’s crew. They weren’t really very wild, to be honest. The evenings mostly consisted of Bra’tac and Daniel playing chess while Jack made what he thought were hilarious remarks. The first mate, Teal’c, stayed up on the wheel, steering the boat, and for that Sam was glad. He had a mysterious way of looking at her, with one raised brow, that made her suspect he knew there was more to her than met the eye.
She had a small bed in the broom closet, just outside of the Captain’s lavish cabin, which suited her just fine. It allowed her to get her disguise properly settled before she ventured out each morning to start her swabbing.
She had no idea that she was upon a savage pirate ship and would soon be having an actual adventure.
++
Captain Jack was disgruntled.
He made this known by moping about the deck and sitting in his big Captain’s chair with a wistful, concerned expression on his face. He knew it was bound to get results, because he’d practiced it in the mirror that morning.
It took him three hours of posing before Daniel finally turned away from his sextant and exclaimed, “Oh, Jack, for God’s sake, WHAT?”
Jack ignored the irritation in Daniel’s voice, well used to Daniel's attempts to ruin any dramatic tension he might be trying to build. “I’m troubled,” Jack announced.
“About what? There’d better be enough rum in the hold…”
Jack waved dismissively. “Yes, yes, that’s not why I’m troubled.”
“If you make me guess I’m going to say something about your mother.”
Jack stood and put his hands on his hips in what he considered a manly way. All the good captains stood that way. It showed off his broad shoulders so well. “Two things,” Jack started, and then he paused, breaking his pose, and glanced around to see if Sam was nearby. Daniel followed his gaze with confusion plastered on his face. Jack turned back to him. “First, I think there’s another ship following us. And B, I’m weirdly attracted to the cabin boy.”
Daniel looked startled. “There’s another ship following us?” He ran to the stern of the boat, pulling his spyglass from his pocket as he went. He’d just snapped it out to its full telescoping length and laid his eye against the lens when he stood upright and turned slowly around to face Jack again. “Wait a minute… you’re attracted to the cabin boy?”
Jack nodded. “Don’t you find that odd?”
Daniel frowned. “Well… I suppose… I mean, he is quite a pretty boy.”
“Exactly!” Jack pointed at Daniel enthusiastically. “And tall. Don’t you think he’s rather tall?”
“Well, the last cabin boy we had wasn’t all that short…”
“And a rounded bottom. He has a really nice, rounded bottom.”
Daniel twisted his mouth pensively and considered Captain Jack. “Okay, now you’re freaking me out a little bit.”
Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case might be, they were interrupted when Bra’tac cried out, from high in his place in the crow’s nest, “Ship ahoy, Cap’n!”
Jack quickly strode forward and joined Daniel at the stern. Daniel raised his spyglass to his eye. “Oh, aye! A ship follows in our wake, Captain!”
“Can you see a flag? It has to have a flag, doesn’t it?” Jack blathered a bit in great excitement as Daniel perused the seas. “Is it chasing us or is it pure happenstance that has brought it into our savage pirate clutches?”
Daniel frowned again and made a sound of great contemplation.
Jack stopped blathering and stared at him. “Wait a minute. I’m the captain here.” He grabbed the spyglass from Daniel and put it to his own eye, much to Daniel’s displeasure.
“You could have just asked, Jack.”
The ship was a Naval schooner, fast and sleek and loaded with cannon. Ohhhhh. Not so good. “What does the Royal Navy want with us?”
Daniel cleared his throat nervously. “Um, hello? Pirates here!”
Jack glanced up to where they flew their simple merchant colors. “Well, how could they possibly know that? We aren’t even flying the Jolly Roger!”
“We shall find out,” Teal’c stated, coming up behind them. “For we cannot outrun a vessel such as that.”
Indeed the Navy ship came abreast of the lowly, disguised pirate ship, and several uniformed officers stood on its deck giving Jack stern looks of disapproval. “Ho there, crew of the Homer. You will stop and answer our questions.”
Jack nudged Daniel with the toe of his boot.
Daniel stuttered briefly. “What? Oh! Yes, sir! What can a lowly merchant ship do for you, Admiral?”
“My name is Admiral Jonas Hanson, and I have reason to believe that you have abducted my fiancé’!”
“Fiancé? What fiancé?” Jack asked, trying to appear as clueless as possible.
“We have no women aboard, Admiral,” Daniel shouted back, elbowing Jack in the ribs.
“Really?” The admiral on the opposite deck smirked and then pointed at them. “Then what do you call that?”
“Is he pointing at me or you?” Jack muttered under his breath to Daniel. He was prepared to feel great insult if the finger was pointing at him. And great mirth if it was at Daniel.
“I think he’s pointing at…” Daniel trailed away and turned to look behind them.
Jack turned too, and there, standing on the deck behind them with wide eyes and open mouth, was the cabin boy, Sam.
“Holy Hannah!” Sam exclaimed, staring at the Navy vessel with wide horror on his face.
Jack gave a snort of laughter and gestured grandly at the Navy admiral. “That is our cabin boy, Admiral, not your fiancé! Albeit I concede that he is prettier than normal and oddly tall and pale.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Jack…”
“And he has a very nicely rounded bottom! I’ll give you that!”
“Jack!”
Jack turned and glared at him. “What?”
“I think the cabin boy is a girl.”
Jack blinked at him. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Daniel gestured toward Sam. “I think the cabin boy is a girl.”
“That’s impossible!”
Daniel reached up and grabbed his head, forcing his gaze back toward Sam.
Their cabin boy had ripped his wool hat from his head, releasing wild, pale locks of blond hair that whipped in the sea winds. “Jonas! You’ll never catch me!”
“Hey!” Jack exclaimed. “Sam is a girl! I KNEW IT!”
“Release my fiance' at once, cretin! And we will not destroy you!” Jonas shouted across the waves.
Jack held a hand to his chest, indignant. “Cretin? Did you just call me a cretin?”
“NEVER!” Sam shouted back, and with a wild whoop she suddenly ran below deck.
“Oh crap,” Daniel muttered. “This is not going well.”
“What are your orders, Captain?” Teal’c asked calmly, a picture of manly solitude with his brawny arms folded over his brawny chest.
Jack glanced at him in envy. Where did he even find those tight shirts? Quickly, he shifted his pose to mirror Teal’c’s. Then he lifted his chin with confidence and proclaimed, “Well, I, uh…Ummm… ”
“What will you do with her?” Daniel demanded. Always the humanist.
Admiral Jonas smirked. “Well, take her back home and marry her, of course!”
“What if she does not wish to be married?” Bra’tac called from the crow’s nest.
The admiral’s eyes got hard as flint. “Then she will be made to see reason,” he growled, holding a fist up in tight defiance. One of his officers whispered in his ear. Jonas glanced at him and then back at the Homer, suddenly smiling widely. “I mean, we’ll have a nice chat over tea and then stay friends forever! That’s what I mean, of course!”
“Hmmmm.” Jack tapped a finger against his lips suspiciously. “I don’t think he’s telling the truth.”
“Me either,” Daniel agreed, glaring. “We can’t turn her over to them, Jack.”
“Well, what else are we going to do? We can’t escape them.”
From below deck there came a rumble and a scraping sound. There was a creak of wood and smell of sulfur and then Sam’s voice rang out across the water. “Eat hot iron, you squids!”
There was a sudden deafening BOOM as a canon went off below deck, and moments later the mainsail of the Navy vessel splintered into bits, the sail tipping sideways and then falling onto the deck. Chaos broke out among the sailors.
“Oh, crap!” Daniel repeated. “Jack…”
“What the hell is she doing?” Jack demanded, feeling a bit panicky.
“I believe she is firing the cannon, O’Neill,” Teal’c explained.
“She’s not allowed! I’m the only one allowed! I have to yell ‘Fire!’. She can’t just fire when I haven’t yelled ‘Fire!’”
“I suggest we hoist sails and leave immediately,” Teal’c stated with urgency.
Jack glared, prepared to ignore his advice, when a lead ball whistled by his head and imbedded itself in their own mainsail post. “Make it so!” Jack ordered. He winced as another BOOM made the ship shudder, and a hole appeared in the side of the Naval vessel.
“Blow them out of the water!” Admiral Jonas shouted in rage.
Jack started. “Hurry! Hurry!” he yelled at his own crew. “Pull around and get in front of them!”
The Homer ran ahead of the Navy vessel and kept a course directly on line with its bow. Without its mainsail the Navy ship would have difficulty presenting its starboard side where the canon were kept.
“Damn you!” Admiral Jonas yelled from the deck of his wounded ship. “You will pay for this insolence!” He shook his fist for good measure.
Jack gave a happy little grin and ran up to the stern, waving at him pleasantly. “Goodbye, Admiral! You have no idea how right you are! Insolence is our middle name for we are…” He glanced back and watched as Bra’tac, now on deck, ran the line to raise the Jolly Roger. It fluttered above them in silky black, the white skull and crossbones plain to see. Jack gestured at it grandly. “PIRATES!” he finished, watching as the admiral’s eyes widened in shock.
Jack laughed maniacally as they sailed away, feeling righteously pleased at how well the dramatic ending had played out.
++
“You’re pirates?” Sam demanded, glancing up at the Jolly Roger. “You tricked me into working on a pirate ship?”
“Well… you’re a GIRL!” Jack sputtered, although he was secretly relieved that there’d been a simple explanation for his attraction.
“Don’t change the subject!” Sam ordered, glaring at him.
The Homer had sailed far away from the Navy vessel, and Jack had adjusted the course enough to make sure they wouldn’t meet again. Or at least he hoped so.
“I’m the captain and I say the subject is your girliness!”
“My girliness?” She pegged him with a look of disbelief.
“Or lack thereof,” he amended.
“What are you talking about?”
Jack sighed over-dramatically. This woman knew nothing of the way of pirates. “I cannot allow you, in the goodness, or, er, badness of my pirate heart, to walk around in men’s clothing! You’re a woman, thus you must be properly clothed!”
“Properly…” Sam stared at him. “What does that even mean? I am properly clothed!”
“No, you’re not! Women wear dresses, and that’s what you will wear. I already let a woman stowaway on my ship. If I let you get away with wearing men’s clothing too my reputation will be ruined!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
She looked upset. Angry, really, and Jack worried his lip nervously. She really was quite fetching, especially when she was angry, and he didn’t really want her to dislike him. In fact, he sort of wanted her to smile at him, and maybe drink a little too much rum. And sit on his lap.
“What kind of pirate would I be if I let you wear men’s clothing?” he demanded.
She raised her eyebrows. “A rebellious, equal-opportunity pirate?”
Jack hesitated briefly, wondering if that was something he might like to be. That word ‘rebellious’ was very nice. “No, no, no,” he insisted finally. “We just can’t have it, sorry. You were a good cabin boy, but that was only when I didn’t know you were a girl.”
She was seething under her skin. He could see it. She glared at him darkly. “Oh, nice. Sexism on the high seas. How typical! I hope the New World recognizes women as more than a skirt and a servant.”
“Oh yes,” Daniel piped in, sarcastically. “I’m sure all those male, religiously conservative immigrants in the New World are all about gender equality!”
Sam turned her glare on him. “You’re lousy pirates. You don’t even have a plank.”
“See? SEE?” Jack roared, pointing accusingly at Daniel. “I TOLD you we needed a plank!”
“Well, what’s the point?” Daniel argued. “If you want to throw someone overboard then throw them overboard! Why make them walk along a piece of wood and jump?”
“It’s the principle of the thing!” Jack insisted. He tried to ignore the smirk that Sam was giving them both.
“FINE!” Daniel shouted. “We can have a plank! But we don’t have room for both the plank and your big chair. We’ll have to dismantle your chair to make the plank!”
Jack gasped in horror and hovered protectively over his big chair. “You will not touch my chair! I’ll throw you overboard first!”
“This is ridiculous!” Daniel insisted. He pointed at Sam. “She’s making us argue amongst ourselves!”
“She’s a woman, that’s her job!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Sam snapped. “Forget the plank. I’ll just jump overboard. Anything to escape you idiots!”
They all stared at each other, no one moving.
“Well?” Daniel asked, dryly, looking expectantly at Sam.
“Fine, I’ll stay,” Sam muttered.
“You still have to wear a dress,” Jack insisted.
“I didn’t bring one with me,” Sam declared with a smirk.
“That’s okay. We’ve got you covered,” Daniel announced with a smile.
Sam glared at him.
++
“Well, this is just ridiculous,” Sam complained, tugging at the skirt of her bright blue dress and pulling it with difficulty through the doorway of the hold as she climbed up on deck. The big, round hoops inside the skirt bounced around her. She prodded at them. “How do you expect me to walk around?”
“I don’t expect you to walk around,” Jack exclaimed proudly. Oh yes, he had this pirate thing down to a science!
“What do you mean?” Sam narrowed her eyes at him. The wind blew her skirt to the side and the hoops knocked over a swabbing mop. “Gah! This thing is a menace!”
“I mean you’ll have to be confined to my personal cabin while we’re at sea.”
“I have my own little broom closet, thanks.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Jack argued. “You must be protected, because I am a pirate with honor!”
“Oh, whatever.” Sam rolled her eyes.
“It is the safest place on the ship, milady. Or would you prefer to walk around on deck with my savage pirate crew ravaging you with their eyes?” Jack tried to look mischievous.
Sam glanced over at his ‘crew’. Daniel sat at the wheel reading a book. Teal’c and Bra’tac were playing a quiet game of chess. “Yeah, I think I’ll take my chances,” she said wryly.
Jack sighed in frustration. “Hey!” he snapped at the other men. “Could you at least TRY to play along while I’m trying to impress a woman with our scurviness? We’re savage pirates for cryin’ out loud!”
Teal’c just rolled his eyes, and Bra’tac tilted his head down, glancing at Jack over the rims of his glasses. Daniel yawned and then closed his book around his fingers, marking his place. “Right,” he said, looking at Sam. “The captain’s cabin is the safest place for you, Miss, lest we… ravage you. Or something.”
Sam gave Jack a mordant smirk.
“Thanks, guys,” Jack said sarcastically. “Really. Your dedication is touching.”
“If you’re going to make me wear this damned dress then the least you can do is let me walk around and get some air whenever I want to.”
Jack considered this. There had to be a loophole in the rules… “I know!” he declared triumphantly. “You can be our serving wench!”
She stared at him, eyes darkening.
“Or… not,” he backtracked. He smiled at her nervously. “Need anything? Could I get you some mulled wine, perhaps?”
Sam suddenly heaved a helpless sigh. “Oh, fine, I give up. You’re right. I should just be a fair maiden and let you take care of everything.”
Jack eyed her suspiciously. “Really?”
She nodded. “Yes, really. After all, I’m just a weak, wispy woman.”
“Well, I don’t know about ‘wispy’, but I…”
“I’ll just sit in your cabin all day and lounge about with the wine. You can swab the decks and mend the sails and pour the rum in the evenings.”
“Errr… wait a minute…”
She raised a limp-wristed hand to her forehead, pressing the backs of her fingers above her brow. “I’m far too weak to be doing that sort of thing anyway. Woe! WOE!”
Jack glanced at Daniel. Daniel lifted his eyebrows and glanced over at Teal’c and Bra’tac. Teal’c looked bored, and Bra’tac grinned.
Jack tapped his fingers together anxiously. “Perhaps… we can come to some sort of agreement?”
Sam dropped her hand and met his gaze intently. “Perhaps so, Captain. Perhaps so.”
++
The agreement was that Sam could wear her regular clothes and keep on being the cabin boy, with some altered behavior on the part of the pirates. When they encountered other pirates she would run to put on her dress and play the part of the kidnapped damsel being held for ransom, thus elevating Jack’s pirate status among his peers.
In this way she could pay for her passage to the New World, and none would be the wiser about her girly invasion of the pirate world.
“You know,” she said, one dark and sultry night as she sat on the deck with Captain Jack and sipped some of the rum. “Women can be pirates too. What about Vala the Vile? I’ve heard she’s beautiful and terrifying and rich beyond measure.”
Jack frowned. “I don’t think she’s real. I think some deckhand drank too much rum one night and had hallucinations.”
Sam smirked. “I think you’re just afraid to admit that a woman could be an excellent pirate.”
Jack pouted. “Actually, I think you’d make an excellent pirate.”
Sam was surprised. “Really?”
“Well, you’re certainly bossy enough, and you just nearly sank a ship belonging to the Royal Navy. And you refuse to wear a dress.”
“I think a woman could be a fair pirate captain in a dress too.”
Jack drank his rum and stared at her over the rim of his mug. He gave a rather sarcastic grunt.
It was a quiet, starry night, and Sam felt much more at ease than she had. She gave a sigh and leaned back against the deck rail.
“What are you going to do when we reach the New World?” Jack asked, and he sounded as if he really wanted to know.
Sam shrugged. “My father is there. He retired from the Navy and settled in Virginia. He’s sick, so I’ll be taking care of him until he’s better. After that? I don’t know. If it’s as difficult for a woman to find work there as it was in the Old World, then I just don’t know.” She glanced at him. “What about you? More pirating?”
“Oh, I suppose.” Jack sighed. “To be honest, I’m growing tired of the pirate life.”
Sam lifted her brows. “What? Are you serious?”
“I am,” Jack admitted, trying to put a wistful expression on his face. He thought he did wistful very well. “It rains a lot, and the food is bad, and you can never find good help when you need it. Plus the Navy is always after you, and other pirates are just downright unpleasant.”
“It sounds exciting,” Sam mused, giving a faint smile.
“It is, right up until a cannonball hits your bow and the sharks show up for a snack.”
Sam grinned at him, and he held his breath. Quite fetching. Really quite fetching. He wondered if she’d had enough rum to sit on his lap yet.
“So what do you want to do instead?” she asked.
He blinked his fantasies of her out of mind. “Fishing,” he stated.
Now it was her turn to blink. “Fishing? That’s it?”
Jack thought about it and then smiled. “Yes, fishing. I want a house on some land with a pond in the back. And every morning I can go fishing. I might get a dog too.”
“Sounds very, um… interesting.”
“No,” Jack said, disagreeing. His smile widened. “And that’s the point.”
“Ahhh,” Sam said, nodding. “I get it.” She smiled again then, because he really wasn’t so bad when he wasn’t being ridiculous. He was even sort of… handsome. In a really aggravating kind of way.
“Perhaps I will find a girlfriend. Or a wife.”
“Someone who likes to fish?”
“Hmmmm.” Jack looked pensive. “No. Someone more exciting. Maybe a pirate woman.” He gave her a pointed look at that, and she found herself a little off balance.
“Oh! Er… “
He held up a bottle. “Would you like some more rum? I’ll even do the pouring.”
She bit her lip. “No, I think I’ve had enough.”
He sighed, disappointed. “That’s what they all say,” he said, regretfully.
Yes, he really was very handsome in the moonlight, with his silver hair and his dark eyes, and she softened a little, because she really sort of liked him. “Maybe tomorrow night,” she quipped.
He looked at her in surprise, and she leaned forward, kissing him soundly on the cheek.
“Good night,” she said. And she left him on the deck, staring after her, his own soft good night following after her.
Perhaps, she mused to herself, as she crowded into her small broom closet, pirates weren’t all that bad…
++
There was little pirating to do on the open sea. They had no time to search for treasure. They were on their way to the New World and supplies were carefully measured.
The time passed quickly and well, and Sam found herself enjoying her time on deck. She worked with the rest of the crew, and then relaxed with them as well. Teal’c showed her how to steer the ship and taught her the finer points of captaining. Daniel even grew to like her when she made a small, rain-proof lantern for him to carry above deck on rainy nights, allowing him to read in any weather. Bra’tac played chess with her and even taught her to to make Coq Au Vin, a delightful French recipe of chicken, vegetables, red wine and lard. Hearty!
In the evenings though, after dinner and a few rounds of dice, she would find herself sipping rum on deck with the captain. When he wasn’t bickering with Daniel, or posing in a mirror, he could be quite charming, and she found herself telling him many things about her old life. All about her mother, gone these many years, or about Jonas and how he’d gone all evil on her after becoming engaged. And Jack told her about his days in the Navy, and how he defected to the pirates one day when his former commanding officer had stranded him on an island in an attempt to rid himself of Jack’s bad jokes.
Although he was quick with a suggestive smirk, he behaved quite properly during those discussions, and Sam always left him with a quick kiss.
She was a little sad when Virginia appeared in the distance one morning. They had finally reached the New World, and it was here they would part ways.
“It is here that we will part ways,” Jack said to her as they stood on the deck and Teal’c steered them into the harbor.
“Indeed.” Sam sighed, feeling rather melancholy. “I go off to live on my father’s land, and you go off to your pirating ways.”
“Indeed.” Jack sighed, sounding as melancholy as she did.
“Perhaps,” Sam said, trying her best to sound casual. “You could come and visit me… sometime.”
Jack brightened at that. “Yes! I think that is an excellent idea. Perhaps I could bring you a parrot! I’ve been dying to get one for years, and I hear they can be acquired in the islands to the south.”
Sam frowned. “Er, or maybe you could just bring the crew and we could have some rum. I’m not really a bird person…”
“As you wish,” Jack said, and he smiled. Then he frowned. “Um, I hate to break this to you, but we are in civilization again. You’ll have to put the dress back on.”
“Oh, drat,” Sam muttered. “I was hoping you’d forget about that.”
“No such luck,” Jack said brightly. “I have a reputation to protect. Bloodthirsty and merciless, all that jazz.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” Sam groaned.
When she was once again outfitted in the horrid blue dress and had managed to wrestle it down to the dock, she stood once again facing Captain Jack.
“Well,” he said, rocking up on his toes a bit with a jaunty smile. “This is it then. How should we say goodbye?”
“Subtle, Jack,” she replied, smirking. She waved at the rest of the guys still standing up on deck, and then smiled as she leaned suddenly in toward Jack, aiming for his lips.
“Um, guys?” Daniel’s voice was urgent.
“Watch and learn, Daniel. Stop being so impatient!” Jack called, his eyes glued to Sam, his mouth arching in a happy smile.
“Jack, seriously! You need to look!”
Jack looked up, and both he and Sam followed Daniel’s gaze toward the center of the harbor. There, walking along the docks and examining the ships was Admiral Jonas and a crew of Navy officers.
“Holy crap,” Jack exclaimed. “How did he get here so fast?”
“We need to get out of here!” Daniel warned.
“We have no supplies,” Teal’c argued. “We cannot sail.”
Sam bit her lip, hesitating, and then, “Come with me. My father’s house isn’t far, and he’ll hide you.”
“The ship!” Jack protested.
“Hold on,” Bra’tac called with a nod and a confident grin. He raced back toward the hold and reappeared a minute later with a brush and a bucket. Teal’c and Daniel held his legs as he leaned out over the bow and started slathering deck pitch over the name of the boat. ‘Homer’ was soon nothing more than a dark smudge.
“A boat without a name is just as suspicious,” Daniel said.
“Maybe so, but at least they won’t immediately realize it is us,” Bra’tac retorted.
Daniel shrugged in acquiescence. “True.”
“Let’s go!” Jack ordered, and the crew quickly grabbed their rucksacks and climbed down to the dock. Jack led them along the maze of ships and slips, twisting and turning away from Jonas. Once they reached the streets of the town, Sam took out her father’s letter and they set out to find him.
++
Her father’s place was several miles out of town, along a wild stretch of the coast. Bracketed on one side by a rock cliff and the wild sea, the other side was forest and meadow and an inland stream that ran through the property.
Jacob met them at the door with a friendly brown dog that wagged its tail and sniffed everyone very enthusiastically.
“Samantha!”
Sam hugged him fiercely, happy to see him after so long apart. “Dad!”
The pirates stood by politely, smiling at the scene, except for Jack who immediately brightened at the sight of the dog and bent to scratch him behind the ears. “You’re a good puppy!”
“Dad,” Sam said, holding him at arm’s length and studying him. “You said you were sick in your letter. You look fine to me.”
“Oh, that,” Jacob said, waving a hand dismissively. “It turned out to be some bad spaghetti sauce at the local tavern. I was fine again two days after I sent the letter.”
“Dad!” Sam glared at him. “You scared me to death! I thought you were dying!”
“Well, I felt like I was dying!” Jacob protested. “Not only was I sick, but bad marinara sauce is a crime against nature!”
“I don’t believe this!”
“Well, you’re here now, aren’t you? And it got you away from that fruitcake Jonas.”
“True…” Sam hedged on her anger. “And I am glad you’re alright.”
“See? All’s well that ends well.”
“Men,” Sam muttered under her breath.
“I heard that, Sam. Now introduce me to your friends.”
Sam introduced them, warily, and although Jacob lifted an eyebrow as she described how they had met, he happily shook their hands and thanked them for bringing his daughter to him. He eyed Jack the hardest though, and Jack eyed him back, feeling a little awkward. He wondered if maybe he should have brought the man some rum. Rum was the great equalizer.
As Jacob showed them around though, Jack quickly forgot about the rum and instead became increasingly ecstatic. “This place is perfect!” he exclaimed excitedly. He turned to grin at Sam. “You can see the sea and there’s a little stream for fishing!” He glanced around and then pointed at the dog. “And it has a dog!”
She glanced between him and her father and frowned a bit. “Yes, that’s very exciting. I’m a little freaked out that my father and my boyfriend are so alike though…”
Jack lifted his brows in surprise. “Boyfriend?”
Sam froze. “Ummm… er… did I say ‘boyfriend’? I think I mean ‘friend that is a boy’.”
“No, no!” Jack crowed, looking delighted. “You said ‘boyfriend’!”
Jacob glanced wryly at his daughter. “Why do you always pick the crazy ones?”
Sam glared at him. “Did you not just hear me say that my father and my boyfriend are so alike?”
“You’re just like your mother,” Jacob retorted.
“Apparently.” Sam sighed. She glanced at Jack who was still grinning broadly at her. “Oh, for… let’s not rush things! You’re going off to be a pirate anyway!”
Jack sobered. “Well, maybe I won’t now. Maybe I’ll stay here and fish.”
“Maybe you’ll ask my permission first!” Jacob argued.
“Maybe I’ll bring a lifetime’s supply of rum,” Jack suggested.
“Maybe I keep the fishing poles in the shed out back,” Jacob mused.
“Maybe I’ll run off and become a pirate queen, leaving you two here to be crazy together,” Sam declared.
“Sam!” Both Jacob and Jack looked at her, hurt.
Daniel elbowed her in the ribs. “Are you sure you don’t just want to marry Jonas?”
Sam sighed.
On the way back to the house, Jacob took them through his garden, lush with corn and beans and tomatoes. “Look at this,” Jacob said proudly, holding up a tomato half the size of his head. “They’re amazing! I can make sauce just like your grandmother’s!”
“Your dad can cook?” Jack was very excited.
Sam rolled her eyes. “Maybe you and my dad should date. You’re perfect for each other.”
Jack frowned. “Nah, he wouldn’t look half as hot as you do in that blue dress.”
Sam snorted in a very unladylike manner.
It was when they got back to the house that the tale took a turn for the worse…
“Ah HA! I knew it!” Admiral Jonas, dressed to the nines in his official Naval uniform, met them in the foyer, his crew of similarly dressed officers arranged artfully behind him. He pointed at Sam and Jack and looked triumphant. “I knew that ship was yours, O’Neill! And now I have caught you, you scurvy pirate!”
They were all so surprised that no one was able to draw a pistol before they had half a dozen muskets pointed in their general direction.
“Pirates?” Jack exclaimed. He looked wildly around. “Where?”
“Oh please, O’Neill,” Jonas purred. “I know exactly what you are. Those two cannonballs in my ship are all the proof I need.”
Jack looked pleased. “We really kicked your little Navy asses, didn’t we?”
“Why you…” Jonas scowled.
“Jonas, don’t be stupid!” Sam said, holding her hands out in a placating manner. “Captain Jack didn’t abduct me, I came of my own freewill.”
Jonas smirked. “Oh yes, I know. An even better reason to hang him as a warning to all pirates!”
“Hang me?” Jack looked mortified. He reached up to put a hand on his own throat. “That’s hardly a pleasant way to go. How about I drink too much rum and then fall overboard instead.”
“No, no,” Jonas cackled. “It’s hanging for you!”
Jack looked thoughtful. “What about the rest of my crew?”
Jonas rolled his eyes impatiently. “I don’t care about them. They can take your crappy ship and leave.”
“And Sam?”
“She’s too much trouble to me. I need a real woman who knows how to cook and clean and take care of a man.”
“And you wonder why I left you,” Sam muttered.
“Well,” Jack said, hesitating pensively. “Then I guess I have no choice in the matter…”
“Yes” Jonas grinned with satisfaction.
“Good bye!” Jack turned suddenly and ran out the door.
“Argh!” Jonas roared at his men. “Get him!”
The soldiers ran out the door in hot pursuit, followed by Jonas screaming orders. Sam exchanged a glance with Daniel and they quickly followed.
They hesitated just outside the door, watching as Jack weaved his way through the garden and then into the small forest. The soldiers followed, trampling the garden plants and running into the woods behind him. Jonas stopped short of the forest and shrieked for someone to catch Captain Jack.
“He’ll never get away,” Jacob said worriedly. “No doubt Jonas has the local constable and his men waiting around the property.”
Sam bit her lip, her stomach roiling in nervousness. “Oh, Jack… you idiot!”
As if to illustrate her point, Jack suddenly broke from the trees in the distance and ran along the edge of the cliff, seemingly searching for a way down to the sea. Jonas laughed in glee and raised his musket.
“No!” Sam shouted, hearing Daniel do the same behind her.
But the shot rang out, and Jack stumbled and turned, looking back at them. His hands rose to his chest, a bright red stain blooming on the white of his shirt below them. And then… he fell, arching off the cliff and disappearing from view.
“JACK!” Sam screamed, feeling her heart burst in two.
Behind her, the rest of the crew added their shouts to hers.
In front of them Jonas laughed manically, deliriously happy and triumphant.
++
Teal’c and Bra’tac went down with the soldiers to find Jack’s body in the water.
Sam sat with Daniel and Jacob in the kitchen while Jonas stood in the doorway, a pleased smirk on his face. It was wiped away when Teal’c came through the door carrying a pair of wet leather boots and a soaked pistol. He laid them down carefully on the table. “It is all we could find,” he said softly. “The tide had taken him before we could descend.”
Sam lowered her chin. She never cried, but…
“How do you know he’s dead?” Jonas demanded.
One of his men stepped forward. “You shot him in the chest, sir, and he fell nearly a ship’s height into the sea. No doubt the sharks got him and made short work of him before we got there. There was nowhere for him to swim ashore anyway.”
Jonas smiled at that. “Sharks? He was eaten by sharks?”
“I believe so, sir.”
“Well,” he leveled a satisfied stare at Sam. “A fitting end for a scurvy pirate.”
She glared at him. “Don’t you have to be returning to the Old World now?”
He stood. “I certainly do. And it’ll be a wonderful return indeed when I come back bearing 3 pirate prisoners from Jack O’Neill’s crew!”
“What?” Sam blinked at him. “You said you had no interest in them!”
Behind her, the 3 pirates stiffened in surprise, and Jonas’s men raised their muskets in warning.
“Well, I changed my mind!”
“You sad, silly little man!” Sam flung at him. “Thank GOD I never married you!”
“God doesn’t exist,” Jonas said with a sneer. “There’s only me!”
“This is who you want to lead you?” Sam demanded of the 6 soldiers standing behind him. “This nutjob with a God complex?”
One of the soldiers shrugged. “There’s a really good Christmas bonus,” he said.
“It’s a living,” another one chirped.
“Come along,” Jonas ordered, motioning at the three pirates. He started forward and then stopped suddenly as Jacob stood up in front of him.
“I don’t think so, Admiral Hanson,” Jacob said with a disapproving glare.
Jonas glared right back. “Step aside, old man. You’re not in the Navy anymore!”
“No, but I still have plenty of friends in the Naval office, and many of them come to visit me.” He smiled. “The stream out back has huge trout.”
Jonas hesitated, but then his expression became suspicious. “They don’t suffer pirates anymore than I do, Carter.”
Jacob lifted one manly brow. “No, they don’t. And they don’t suffer incompetent, drunken, power-hungry officers either. Especially ones who holiday in the Caribbean and maybe get a little too friendly with the local livestock.”
Jonas’s eyes widened in horror. “But how… you…”
Jacob smiled. “I do so love the Caribbean in winter. Go there every year if I can…”
“It’s not true!” Jonas shrieked.
Jacob shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll believe you over me… right?”
Jonas looked panicked.
“Of course, if you just leave right now and take your men with you, all the way back to the Old World, I’ll probably forget all about it by the time one of my admiral buddies comes to visit. I am an old man, you know.”
Jonas stared at him in horror, and then in anger. Jacob simply lifted his eyebrows and waited.
“Sir?” the soldiers prompted, muskets still raised.
“Forget it,” Jonas finally said. “To the docks on the double. We’re getting out of here. They’re piss-poor pirates anyway!”
“We really do suck!” Daniel stated with a grin.
“Completely!” Bra’tac agreed.
Jonas gave them one more withering glare and then marched from the house with his posse, disappearing down the lane.
Bra’tac waited a few minutes and then rose. “I’ll follow and make sure their ship leaves.”
Jacob nodded in agreement.
With that they all sat around the table and glanced at each other. The smiles turned to frowns. Sam gave a sad sigh.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” Jacob finally said. “Jack seemed like a good fellow.”
“He was,” Sam said forlornly. “He was arrogant and clueless.”
“And really, really irritating,” Daniel added with a small smile.
“And his jokes were extremely unfunny,” Teal’c stated, quietly.
They looked at each other.
“And he was perfect,” Sam concluded, sadly.
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“Indeed,” Teal’c murmured.
“Well, thank God for that. I was beginning to think you wanted me dead!” The voice came from the doorway, and they all turned, startled.
Jack stood there, dripping wet and bootless, his shirt a mass of purple swirls.
“JACK!” Sam leapt up from the table. “But how… why…”
“What the hell, Jack?” Daniel rose as well, followed by Teal’c.
Jack stuck a finger in his ear, twisting it and squinting as he tried to get the water out. “I faked my own death!” He grinned. “Pretty good, huh?”
Sam shot toward him and threw herself into his arms, knocking him back into the wall.
“Oof!” he grunted, and then he smiled down at her. “Miss me?”
She kissed him. On the mouth. With tongue.
“Mmmmmm,” he said, smiling against her lips.
She drew back from him and then glared, throwing a light punch into his gut. “Damn you! We thought you were dead!”
“Unf!” He grimaced and held the place she had hit him. “Ow! What are you trying to do, finish the job?”
“How did you do this, O’Neill?” Teal’c demanded.
Jack stood and reached inside his shirt, pulling out the squashed corpse of a giant tomato. “Jacob’s finest! Looked just like blood! Then all I had to do was take a dive off the cliff into the water. I’m an excellent swimmer, you know. I left my boots and pistol and just swam down the coast until no one could see me and then climbed out and waited.”
“Jack,” Daniel exclaimed. “That’s almost… brilliant!”
“I know!” Jack said proudly.
“What if he’d actually shot you?” Sam demanded.
Jack made a face. “Are you kidding? Navy officers are the worst shots in the world!”
Jacob cleared his throat.
Jack swallowed. “Um, except for you, sir. Of course I didn’t mean you.”
“Right,” Jacob agreed, amused.
“Besides,” Jack said, glancing around. “None of this is important. Hanson is on his way home, and I’m alive. There’s something else that we need to tend to.”
They all looked at him expectantly, and he rolled his eyes. Then he grinned at Sam. “Sam kissed me. On the mouth! I am definitely her boyfriend!”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Sam muttered. But she smiled too.
“So, now what do we do?” Jack asked hopefully.
++
The kiss was long and wet and sweet, and when she pulled back he was smiling at her.
“Bye,” she said, a little wistfully.
“Bye,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll miss you.”
“Me too.”
He held her hand until she walked away, and then she was climbing up into the newly christened ship: the Copernicus.
She smiled as Daniel grinned at her and motioned her toward the big chair. She glanced at Teal’c, who stood waiting by the wheel. “Take us out, T.”
He inclined his head with a smile and the ship started out of port. On the dock, Jack and Jacob waved at her and then turned to trundle away, fishing poles propped on their shoulders.
She took a deep breath and lowered herself into the chair.
“Our new captain needs a name,” Bra’tac said with a grin.
“Sam the Seductive,” Daniel suggested. Sam blanched.
“Sam the Psychotic!” Bra’tac yelled.
“That doesn’t technically start with an ‘S’,” Daniel protested.
“Sam the Sinister,” Teal’c offered, and she smiled at him.
“Ooh, I like that.”
“Sam the sterile,” Daniel mused.
“Sterile? What the hell?” She shot Daniel a warning glance. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you…”
He simply smiled innocently.
“Sam the Superior,” Bra’tac stated with finality.
They all stared at him.
“Super Sam,” he amended, nodding.
Teal’c nodded.
Daniel grinned. “I think you got it, Bra’tac!”
They looked at Sam and she smiled at them. “Yes,” she said. “I think I like that.”
And thus, the tale of Samantha Carter and the Savage Pirates ends for now. A happy ending, because all good tales end that way, and this is nothing if not a good tale. ;)
~end~
To be cross-posted eventually to crackified_gate. ;)
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Category: AU, humor, romance, crackfic-lite
Rating: PG-13 for a little language
A/N: Drawing inspiration from A Princess Bride, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! by Gideon Defoe, and all the various pirate romance novels I’ve read over my life. All in good fun!
Sam Carter and the Savage Pirates
Written by surreallis
Thanks to shutthef_up for looking it over a few months ago before I painstakingly copied it all by hand into a paper journal. ;)
++
Once upon a time, a woman named Samantha Carter decided, in the way all good women who aspire to be written of in romance novels decide, to disguise herself as a boy and procure employment upon a sailing vessel destined for the New World. Of course, as is the way of such things, the events precipitating this monumental decision were a letter from her father, who was already settled in the New World and waiting, sick, for her arrival; and her desire for a stealthy escape from her fiancé', Jonas, a decorated officer in the Royal Navy who drank a bit too much and sometimes thought he was God.
Unfortunately, the Royal Navy did not accept women as sailors, nor would any passenger vessel take her anywhere without a substantial fare. Or a less than desirable 'agreement' between a scurvy, toothless captain and her virtue. Alright, 'virtue' was stretching it a little, but still...
You can see her dilemma.
So she cut her hair short--but not too short--and she dressed in baggy clothing, rubbed dirt upon her fair cheeks, and she tip-toed past a napping, snoring Jonas in order to venture down to the harbor to seek her fortune.
It was a busy day at the Marina, with several vessels about to set forth. Two were naval vessels and so she had to forego them. Surely their crews would be familiar with Jonas and would notify him straightaway that she had lost that loving feeling. Woe.
Another two were passenger vessels, and she attempted to gain employment as a navigator or in steerage, but they were put off by her lean, boyish figure and besides which she had no rum. This was apparently an important due to pay in the Union of Navigators and Steerage Persons, and she'd neglected to stuff her sack with a bottle or two.
There were several trade vessels to deal with, and their crews were lowly and much less driven to find quality help. In a word, they had to take what they could get. Namely, Sam Carter, cabin boy extraordinaire.
It was in this odd way that she met Captain Jack O'Neill and his band of savage pirates!
+
Captain Jack was having a bad day.
He was an engaging man with a lively, fantastic sense of humor, if he did say so himself, and yet none of the prospective cabin boys he had interviewed had seemed to get his jokes. This was an important skill set for a cabin boy to have, especially as Captain Jack's exquisite humor seemed to be all but lost on his regular crew. His first mate, Teal'c, never seemed to laugh at anything, while the cook and steerage officer, Bra'tac, just looked at Jack as if he were three sheets to the wind. Daniel, his snarky navigator and all around know-it-all, only seemed to laugh when Jack slipped on the wet deck and went ass over teakettle into the fishing nets.
He didn't always take on a cabin boy as it could be quite the risk. You see, he and his band of poor merchant traders had a secret. Once they got out into the open sea they pulled down the colors of their native country and instead hoisted the Jolly Roger. They were PIRATES!
Granted, the last time they'd actually killed anyone for booty had been... well, never, but Daniel could pester anyone until they gave up their goods voluntarily just so he'd go away, and Teal'c could be really, really IMPOSING. And they all carried shiny, sharp swords and daggers. You couldn't be a pirate if you weren't properly geared up, after all.
This voyage, however, they were setting forth for the New World. It was said to be a rich world and the masses were converging on the new land with all their wealth. A pirate had to get while the gettin' was good. And a voyage that long needed a cabin boy to swab the decks and pour the rum. And maybe to laugh at Captain Jack's jokes, because a good joke unlaughed at was like a bottle of rum poured into the sea: just a crying shame.
He interviewed several likely candidates, including an 80 year-old man and a boy with a very promising peg-leg, but to no avail. He was growing quite frustrated and about to give up when one more prospect stepped up to his table in the tavern.
"My name is Sam Carter," said the lad in a rather gruff, odd voice, and Captain Jack looked up, up, up into big blue eyes.
"Aren't you a little tall... and old... for a cabin boy?"
Sam frowned. "Old? I'm only... er, 17 years old."
Jack wasn't born yesterday. And this lad definitely wasn't born 17 years ago. Still... he looked capable enough. "What do you know how to do?"
The lad tilted his smooth-cheeked head (did he really just think that, Jack wondered?) and thought about it. "I know navigation, steerage, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, black-smithing, metallurgy, defense against the dark arts, jedi mind control, moonshining, calligraphy, and animal husbandry."
Jack stared at him. (she's trying to be a boy, remember?)
"Oh," he added, pointing at Jack for emphasis. "And I don't cook."
Jack considered him for a moment. "That's all well and good, but what about jokes?"
"Jokes?" Sam repeated, looking a little vexed.
"Yes, as in... do you like them?"
"I can learn a few jokes if you insist."
"I do not insist. I need to know if you find MY jokes funny. I'd rather not have competition, thanks."
Sam lifted his eyebrows. "Something tells me, sir, that it wouldn't be much of a competition."
Jack grinned, pleased, and then suspicion filled him. "Hey..."
Sam glanced upwards and whistled innocently.
"Why don't pirates do well in school?" Jack demanded.
Sam looked confused. "What?"
"Why don't pirates do well in school?"
Sam regarded him suspiciously. "Is this some sort of a joke?"
"I don't know, is it? You tell me."
Sam narrowed his eyes. "I don't know, why don't pirates do well in school?"
Jack joyfully expelled the punchline. "Because they only know one letter: Arrrrrrrr!"
Sam blinked at him. And then the corners of his mouth wavered, tugged upwards, and then pulled tight.
Jack jumped to his feet. "Ah HA! You smiled! You smiled at my joke! I saw it!"
"I did not!" Sam protested. "It was a stupid joke!"
"You did! You did!" Jack crowed. "Don't try to deny it! I saw it."
Sam grumbled sullenly but finally admitted that, yes, he had maybe, possibly, before his good sense had kicked in, smiled at Jack's joke.
And thus our cleverly disguised Sam was hired onto Jack's pirate ship, and their tale began.
++
Life as a cabin boy was not very splendiferous. In fact, it was quite irritating. Sam dutifully swabbed the decks and mended the sails, and in the evenings she had to pour the rum and endure the drunken antics of Captain Jack’s crew. They weren’t really very wild, to be honest. The evenings mostly consisted of Bra’tac and Daniel playing chess while Jack made what he thought were hilarious remarks. The first mate, Teal’c, stayed up on the wheel, steering the boat, and for that Sam was glad. He had a mysterious way of looking at her, with one raised brow, that made her suspect he knew there was more to her than met the eye.
She had a small bed in the broom closet, just outside of the Captain’s lavish cabin, which suited her just fine. It allowed her to get her disguise properly settled before she ventured out each morning to start her swabbing.
She had no idea that she was upon a savage pirate ship and would soon be having an actual adventure.
++
Captain Jack was disgruntled.
He made this known by moping about the deck and sitting in his big Captain’s chair with a wistful, concerned expression on his face. He knew it was bound to get results, because he’d practiced it in the mirror that morning.
It took him three hours of posing before Daniel finally turned away from his sextant and exclaimed, “Oh, Jack, for God’s sake, WHAT?”
Jack ignored the irritation in Daniel’s voice, well used to Daniel's attempts to ruin any dramatic tension he might be trying to build. “I’m troubled,” Jack announced.
“About what? There’d better be enough rum in the hold…”
Jack waved dismissively. “Yes, yes, that’s not why I’m troubled.”
“If you make me guess I’m going to say something about your mother.”
Jack stood and put his hands on his hips in what he considered a manly way. All the good captains stood that way. It showed off his broad shoulders so well. “Two things,” Jack started, and then he paused, breaking his pose, and glanced around to see if Sam was nearby. Daniel followed his gaze with confusion plastered on his face. Jack turned back to him. “First, I think there’s another ship following us. And B, I’m weirdly attracted to the cabin boy.”
Daniel looked startled. “There’s another ship following us?” He ran to the stern of the boat, pulling his spyglass from his pocket as he went. He’d just snapped it out to its full telescoping length and laid his eye against the lens when he stood upright and turned slowly around to face Jack again. “Wait a minute… you’re attracted to the cabin boy?”
Jack nodded. “Don’t you find that odd?”
Daniel frowned. “Well… I suppose… I mean, he is quite a pretty boy.”
“Exactly!” Jack pointed at Daniel enthusiastically. “And tall. Don’t you think he’s rather tall?”
“Well, the last cabin boy we had wasn’t all that short…”
“And a rounded bottom. He has a really nice, rounded bottom.”
Daniel twisted his mouth pensively and considered Captain Jack. “Okay, now you’re freaking me out a little bit.”
Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case might be, they were interrupted when Bra’tac cried out, from high in his place in the crow’s nest, “Ship ahoy, Cap’n!”
Jack quickly strode forward and joined Daniel at the stern. Daniel raised his spyglass to his eye. “Oh, aye! A ship follows in our wake, Captain!”
“Can you see a flag? It has to have a flag, doesn’t it?” Jack blathered a bit in great excitement as Daniel perused the seas. “Is it chasing us or is it pure happenstance that has brought it into our savage pirate clutches?”
Daniel frowned again and made a sound of great contemplation.
Jack stopped blathering and stared at him. “Wait a minute. I’m the captain here.” He grabbed the spyglass from Daniel and put it to his own eye, much to Daniel’s displeasure.
“You could have just asked, Jack.”
The ship was a Naval schooner, fast and sleek and loaded with cannon. Ohhhhh. Not so good. “What does the Royal Navy want with us?”
Daniel cleared his throat nervously. “Um, hello? Pirates here!”
Jack glanced up to where they flew their simple merchant colors. “Well, how could they possibly know that? We aren’t even flying the Jolly Roger!”
“We shall find out,” Teal’c stated, coming up behind them. “For we cannot outrun a vessel such as that.”
Indeed the Navy ship came abreast of the lowly, disguised pirate ship, and several uniformed officers stood on its deck giving Jack stern looks of disapproval. “Ho there, crew of the Homer. You will stop and answer our questions.”
Jack nudged Daniel with the toe of his boot.
Daniel stuttered briefly. “What? Oh! Yes, sir! What can a lowly merchant ship do for you, Admiral?”
“My name is Admiral Jonas Hanson, and I have reason to believe that you have abducted my fiancé’!”
“Fiancé? What fiancé?” Jack asked, trying to appear as clueless as possible.
“We have no women aboard, Admiral,” Daniel shouted back, elbowing Jack in the ribs.
“Really?” The admiral on the opposite deck smirked and then pointed at them. “Then what do you call that?”
“Is he pointing at me or you?” Jack muttered under his breath to Daniel. He was prepared to feel great insult if the finger was pointing at him. And great mirth if it was at Daniel.
“I think he’s pointing at…” Daniel trailed away and turned to look behind them.
Jack turned too, and there, standing on the deck behind them with wide eyes and open mouth, was the cabin boy, Sam.
“Holy Hannah!” Sam exclaimed, staring at the Navy vessel with wide horror on his face.
Jack gave a snort of laughter and gestured grandly at the Navy admiral. “That is our cabin boy, Admiral, not your fiancé! Albeit I concede that he is prettier than normal and oddly tall and pale.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Jack…”
“And he has a very nicely rounded bottom! I’ll give you that!”
“Jack!”
Jack turned and glared at him. “What?”
“I think the cabin boy is a girl.”
Jack blinked at him. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Daniel gestured toward Sam. “I think the cabin boy is a girl.”
“That’s impossible!”
Daniel reached up and grabbed his head, forcing his gaze back toward Sam.
Their cabin boy had ripped his wool hat from his head, releasing wild, pale locks of blond hair that whipped in the sea winds. “Jonas! You’ll never catch me!”
“Hey!” Jack exclaimed. “Sam is a girl! I KNEW IT!”
“Release my fiance' at once, cretin! And we will not destroy you!” Jonas shouted across the waves.
Jack held a hand to his chest, indignant. “Cretin? Did you just call me a cretin?”
“NEVER!” Sam shouted back, and with a wild whoop she suddenly ran below deck.
“Oh crap,” Daniel muttered. “This is not going well.”
“What are your orders, Captain?” Teal’c asked calmly, a picture of manly solitude with his brawny arms folded over his brawny chest.
Jack glanced at him in envy. Where did he even find those tight shirts? Quickly, he shifted his pose to mirror Teal’c’s. Then he lifted his chin with confidence and proclaimed, “Well, I, uh…Ummm… ”
“What will you do with her?” Daniel demanded. Always the humanist.
Admiral Jonas smirked. “Well, take her back home and marry her, of course!”
“What if she does not wish to be married?” Bra’tac called from the crow’s nest.
The admiral’s eyes got hard as flint. “Then she will be made to see reason,” he growled, holding a fist up in tight defiance. One of his officers whispered in his ear. Jonas glanced at him and then back at the Homer, suddenly smiling widely. “I mean, we’ll have a nice chat over tea and then stay friends forever! That’s what I mean, of course!”
“Hmmmm.” Jack tapped a finger against his lips suspiciously. “I don’t think he’s telling the truth.”
“Me either,” Daniel agreed, glaring. “We can’t turn her over to them, Jack.”
“Well, what else are we going to do? We can’t escape them.”
From below deck there came a rumble and a scraping sound. There was a creak of wood and smell of sulfur and then Sam’s voice rang out across the water. “Eat hot iron, you squids!”
There was a sudden deafening BOOM as a canon went off below deck, and moments later the mainsail of the Navy vessel splintered into bits, the sail tipping sideways and then falling onto the deck. Chaos broke out among the sailors.
“Oh, crap!” Daniel repeated. “Jack…”
“What the hell is she doing?” Jack demanded, feeling a bit panicky.
“I believe she is firing the cannon, O’Neill,” Teal’c explained.
“She’s not allowed! I’m the only one allowed! I have to yell ‘Fire!’. She can’t just fire when I haven’t yelled ‘Fire!’”
“I suggest we hoist sails and leave immediately,” Teal’c stated with urgency.
Jack glared, prepared to ignore his advice, when a lead ball whistled by his head and imbedded itself in their own mainsail post. “Make it so!” Jack ordered. He winced as another BOOM made the ship shudder, and a hole appeared in the side of the Naval vessel.
“Blow them out of the water!” Admiral Jonas shouted in rage.
Jack started. “Hurry! Hurry!” he yelled at his own crew. “Pull around and get in front of them!”
The Homer ran ahead of the Navy vessel and kept a course directly on line with its bow. Without its mainsail the Navy ship would have difficulty presenting its starboard side where the canon were kept.
“Damn you!” Admiral Jonas yelled from the deck of his wounded ship. “You will pay for this insolence!” He shook his fist for good measure.
Jack gave a happy little grin and ran up to the stern, waving at him pleasantly. “Goodbye, Admiral! You have no idea how right you are! Insolence is our middle name for we are…” He glanced back and watched as Bra’tac, now on deck, ran the line to raise the Jolly Roger. It fluttered above them in silky black, the white skull and crossbones plain to see. Jack gestured at it grandly. “PIRATES!” he finished, watching as the admiral’s eyes widened in shock.
Jack laughed maniacally as they sailed away, feeling righteously pleased at how well the dramatic ending had played out.
++
“You’re pirates?” Sam demanded, glancing up at the Jolly Roger. “You tricked me into working on a pirate ship?”
“Well… you’re a GIRL!” Jack sputtered, although he was secretly relieved that there’d been a simple explanation for his attraction.
“Don’t change the subject!” Sam ordered, glaring at him.
The Homer had sailed far away from the Navy vessel, and Jack had adjusted the course enough to make sure they wouldn’t meet again. Or at least he hoped so.
“I’m the captain and I say the subject is your girliness!”
“My girliness?” She pegged him with a look of disbelief.
“Or lack thereof,” he amended.
“What are you talking about?”
Jack sighed over-dramatically. This woman knew nothing of the way of pirates. “I cannot allow you, in the goodness, or, er, badness of my pirate heart, to walk around in men’s clothing! You’re a woman, thus you must be properly clothed!”
“Properly…” Sam stared at him. “What does that even mean? I am properly clothed!”
“No, you’re not! Women wear dresses, and that’s what you will wear. I already let a woman stowaway on my ship. If I let you get away with wearing men’s clothing too my reputation will be ruined!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
She looked upset. Angry, really, and Jack worried his lip nervously. She really was quite fetching, especially when she was angry, and he didn’t really want her to dislike him. In fact, he sort of wanted her to smile at him, and maybe drink a little too much rum. And sit on his lap.
“What kind of pirate would I be if I let you wear men’s clothing?” he demanded.
She raised her eyebrows. “A rebellious, equal-opportunity pirate?”
Jack hesitated briefly, wondering if that was something he might like to be. That word ‘rebellious’ was very nice. “No, no, no,” he insisted finally. “We just can’t have it, sorry. You were a good cabin boy, but that was only when I didn’t know you were a girl.”
She was seething under her skin. He could see it. She glared at him darkly. “Oh, nice. Sexism on the high seas. How typical! I hope the New World recognizes women as more than a skirt and a servant.”
“Oh yes,” Daniel piped in, sarcastically. “I’m sure all those male, religiously conservative immigrants in the New World are all about gender equality!”
Sam turned her glare on him. “You’re lousy pirates. You don’t even have a plank.”
“See? SEE?” Jack roared, pointing accusingly at Daniel. “I TOLD you we needed a plank!”
“Well, what’s the point?” Daniel argued. “If you want to throw someone overboard then throw them overboard! Why make them walk along a piece of wood and jump?”
“It’s the principle of the thing!” Jack insisted. He tried to ignore the smirk that Sam was giving them both.
“FINE!” Daniel shouted. “We can have a plank! But we don’t have room for both the plank and your big chair. We’ll have to dismantle your chair to make the plank!”
Jack gasped in horror and hovered protectively over his big chair. “You will not touch my chair! I’ll throw you overboard first!”
“This is ridiculous!” Daniel insisted. He pointed at Sam. “She’s making us argue amongst ourselves!”
“She’s a woman, that’s her job!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Sam snapped. “Forget the plank. I’ll just jump overboard. Anything to escape you idiots!”
They all stared at each other, no one moving.
“Well?” Daniel asked, dryly, looking expectantly at Sam.
“Fine, I’ll stay,” Sam muttered.
“You still have to wear a dress,” Jack insisted.
“I didn’t bring one with me,” Sam declared with a smirk.
“That’s okay. We’ve got you covered,” Daniel announced with a smile.
Sam glared at him.
++
“Well, this is just ridiculous,” Sam complained, tugging at the skirt of her bright blue dress and pulling it with difficulty through the doorway of the hold as she climbed up on deck. The big, round hoops inside the skirt bounced around her. She prodded at them. “How do you expect me to walk around?”
“I don’t expect you to walk around,” Jack exclaimed proudly. Oh yes, he had this pirate thing down to a science!
“What do you mean?” Sam narrowed her eyes at him. The wind blew her skirt to the side and the hoops knocked over a swabbing mop. “Gah! This thing is a menace!”
“I mean you’ll have to be confined to my personal cabin while we’re at sea.”
“I have my own little broom closet, thanks.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Jack argued. “You must be protected, because I am a pirate with honor!”
“Oh, whatever.” Sam rolled her eyes.
“It is the safest place on the ship, milady. Or would you prefer to walk around on deck with my savage pirate crew ravaging you with their eyes?” Jack tried to look mischievous.
Sam glanced over at his ‘crew’. Daniel sat at the wheel reading a book. Teal’c and Bra’tac were playing a quiet game of chess. “Yeah, I think I’ll take my chances,” she said wryly.
Jack sighed in frustration. “Hey!” he snapped at the other men. “Could you at least TRY to play along while I’m trying to impress a woman with our scurviness? We’re savage pirates for cryin’ out loud!”
Teal’c just rolled his eyes, and Bra’tac tilted his head down, glancing at Jack over the rims of his glasses. Daniel yawned and then closed his book around his fingers, marking his place. “Right,” he said, looking at Sam. “The captain’s cabin is the safest place for you, Miss, lest we… ravage you. Or something.”
Sam gave Jack a mordant smirk.
“Thanks, guys,” Jack said sarcastically. “Really. Your dedication is touching.”
“If you’re going to make me wear this damned dress then the least you can do is let me walk around and get some air whenever I want to.”
Jack considered this. There had to be a loophole in the rules… “I know!” he declared triumphantly. “You can be our serving wench!”
She stared at him, eyes darkening.
“Or… not,” he backtracked. He smiled at her nervously. “Need anything? Could I get you some mulled wine, perhaps?”
Sam suddenly heaved a helpless sigh. “Oh, fine, I give up. You’re right. I should just be a fair maiden and let you take care of everything.”
Jack eyed her suspiciously. “Really?”
She nodded. “Yes, really. After all, I’m just a weak, wispy woman.”
“Well, I don’t know about ‘wispy’, but I…”
“I’ll just sit in your cabin all day and lounge about with the wine. You can swab the decks and mend the sails and pour the rum in the evenings.”
“Errr… wait a minute…”
She raised a limp-wristed hand to her forehead, pressing the backs of her fingers above her brow. “I’m far too weak to be doing that sort of thing anyway. Woe! WOE!”
Jack glanced at Daniel. Daniel lifted his eyebrows and glanced over at Teal’c and Bra’tac. Teal’c looked bored, and Bra’tac grinned.
Jack tapped his fingers together anxiously. “Perhaps… we can come to some sort of agreement?”
Sam dropped her hand and met his gaze intently. “Perhaps so, Captain. Perhaps so.”
++
The agreement was that Sam could wear her regular clothes and keep on being the cabin boy, with some altered behavior on the part of the pirates. When they encountered other pirates she would run to put on her dress and play the part of the kidnapped damsel being held for ransom, thus elevating Jack’s pirate status among his peers.
In this way she could pay for her passage to the New World, and none would be the wiser about her girly invasion of the pirate world.
“You know,” she said, one dark and sultry night as she sat on the deck with Captain Jack and sipped some of the rum. “Women can be pirates too. What about Vala the Vile? I’ve heard she’s beautiful and terrifying and rich beyond measure.”
Jack frowned. “I don’t think she’s real. I think some deckhand drank too much rum one night and had hallucinations.”
Sam smirked. “I think you’re just afraid to admit that a woman could be an excellent pirate.”
Jack pouted. “Actually, I think you’d make an excellent pirate.”
Sam was surprised. “Really?”
“Well, you’re certainly bossy enough, and you just nearly sank a ship belonging to the Royal Navy. And you refuse to wear a dress.”
“I think a woman could be a fair pirate captain in a dress too.”
Jack drank his rum and stared at her over the rim of his mug. He gave a rather sarcastic grunt.
It was a quiet, starry night, and Sam felt much more at ease than she had. She gave a sigh and leaned back against the deck rail.
“What are you going to do when we reach the New World?” Jack asked, and he sounded as if he really wanted to know.
Sam shrugged. “My father is there. He retired from the Navy and settled in Virginia. He’s sick, so I’ll be taking care of him until he’s better. After that? I don’t know. If it’s as difficult for a woman to find work there as it was in the Old World, then I just don’t know.” She glanced at him. “What about you? More pirating?”
“Oh, I suppose.” Jack sighed. “To be honest, I’m growing tired of the pirate life.”
Sam lifted her brows. “What? Are you serious?”
“I am,” Jack admitted, trying to put a wistful expression on his face. He thought he did wistful very well. “It rains a lot, and the food is bad, and you can never find good help when you need it. Plus the Navy is always after you, and other pirates are just downright unpleasant.”
“It sounds exciting,” Sam mused, giving a faint smile.
“It is, right up until a cannonball hits your bow and the sharks show up for a snack.”
Sam grinned at him, and he held his breath. Quite fetching. Really quite fetching. He wondered if she’d had enough rum to sit on his lap yet.
“So what do you want to do instead?” she asked.
He blinked his fantasies of her out of mind. “Fishing,” he stated.
Now it was her turn to blink. “Fishing? That’s it?”
Jack thought about it and then smiled. “Yes, fishing. I want a house on some land with a pond in the back. And every morning I can go fishing. I might get a dog too.”
“Sounds very, um… interesting.”
“No,” Jack said, disagreeing. His smile widened. “And that’s the point.”
“Ahhh,” Sam said, nodding. “I get it.” She smiled again then, because he really wasn’t so bad when he wasn’t being ridiculous. He was even sort of… handsome. In a really aggravating kind of way.
“Perhaps I will find a girlfriend. Or a wife.”
“Someone who likes to fish?”
“Hmmmm.” Jack looked pensive. “No. Someone more exciting. Maybe a pirate woman.” He gave her a pointed look at that, and she found herself a little off balance.
“Oh! Er… “
He held up a bottle. “Would you like some more rum? I’ll even do the pouring.”
She bit her lip. “No, I think I’ve had enough.”
He sighed, disappointed. “That’s what they all say,” he said, regretfully.
Yes, he really was very handsome in the moonlight, with his silver hair and his dark eyes, and she softened a little, because she really sort of liked him. “Maybe tomorrow night,” she quipped.
He looked at her in surprise, and she leaned forward, kissing him soundly on the cheek.
“Good night,” she said. And she left him on the deck, staring after her, his own soft good night following after her.
Perhaps, she mused to herself, as she crowded into her small broom closet, pirates weren’t all that bad…
++
There was little pirating to do on the open sea. They had no time to search for treasure. They were on their way to the New World and supplies were carefully measured.
The time passed quickly and well, and Sam found herself enjoying her time on deck. She worked with the rest of the crew, and then relaxed with them as well. Teal’c showed her how to steer the ship and taught her the finer points of captaining. Daniel even grew to like her when she made a small, rain-proof lantern for him to carry above deck on rainy nights, allowing him to read in any weather. Bra’tac played chess with her and even taught her to to make Coq Au Vin, a delightful French recipe of chicken, vegetables, red wine and lard. Hearty!
In the evenings though, after dinner and a few rounds of dice, she would find herself sipping rum on deck with the captain. When he wasn’t bickering with Daniel, or posing in a mirror, he could be quite charming, and she found herself telling him many things about her old life. All about her mother, gone these many years, or about Jonas and how he’d gone all evil on her after becoming engaged. And Jack told her about his days in the Navy, and how he defected to the pirates one day when his former commanding officer had stranded him on an island in an attempt to rid himself of Jack’s bad jokes.
Although he was quick with a suggestive smirk, he behaved quite properly during those discussions, and Sam always left him with a quick kiss.
She was a little sad when Virginia appeared in the distance one morning. They had finally reached the New World, and it was here they would part ways.
“It is here that we will part ways,” Jack said to her as they stood on the deck and Teal’c steered them into the harbor.
“Indeed.” Sam sighed, feeling rather melancholy. “I go off to live on my father’s land, and you go off to your pirating ways.”
“Indeed.” Jack sighed, sounding as melancholy as she did.
“Perhaps,” Sam said, trying her best to sound casual. “You could come and visit me… sometime.”
Jack brightened at that. “Yes! I think that is an excellent idea. Perhaps I could bring you a parrot! I’ve been dying to get one for years, and I hear they can be acquired in the islands to the south.”
Sam frowned. “Er, or maybe you could just bring the crew and we could have some rum. I’m not really a bird person…”
“As you wish,” Jack said, and he smiled. Then he frowned. “Um, I hate to break this to you, but we are in civilization again. You’ll have to put the dress back on.”
“Oh, drat,” Sam muttered. “I was hoping you’d forget about that.”
“No such luck,” Jack said brightly. “I have a reputation to protect. Bloodthirsty and merciless, all that jazz.”
“I’m going, I’m going,” Sam groaned.
When she was once again outfitted in the horrid blue dress and had managed to wrestle it down to the dock, she stood once again facing Captain Jack.
“Well,” he said, rocking up on his toes a bit with a jaunty smile. “This is it then. How should we say goodbye?”
“Subtle, Jack,” she replied, smirking. She waved at the rest of the guys still standing up on deck, and then smiled as she leaned suddenly in toward Jack, aiming for his lips.
“Um, guys?” Daniel’s voice was urgent.
“Watch and learn, Daniel. Stop being so impatient!” Jack called, his eyes glued to Sam, his mouth arching in a happy smile.
“Jack, seriously! You need to look!”
Jack looked up, and both he and Sam followed Daniel’s gaze toward the center of the harbor. There, walking along the docks and examining the ships was Admiral Jonas and a crew of Navy officers.
“Holy crap,” Jack exclaimed. “How did he get here so fast?”
“We need to get out of here!” Daniel warned.
“We have no supplies,” Teal’c argued. “We cannot sail.”
Sam bit her lip, hesitating, and then, “Come with me. My father’s house isn’t far, and he’ll hide you.”
“The ship!” Jack protested.
“Hold on,” Bra’tac called with a nod and a confident grin. He raced back toward the hold and reappeared a minute later with a brush and a bucket. Teal’c and Daniel held his legs as he leaned out over the bow and started slathering deck pitch over the name of the boat. ‘Homer’ was soon nothing more than a dark smudge.
“A boat without a name is just as suspicious,” Daniel said.
“Maybe so, but at least they won’t immediately realize it is us,” Bra’tac retorted.
Daniel shrugged in acquiescence. “True.”
“Let’s go!” Jack ordered, and the crew quickly grabbed their rucksacks and climbed down to the dock. Jack led them along the maze of ships and slips, twisting and turning away from Jonas. Once they reached the streets of the town, Sam took out her father’s letter and they set out to find him.
++
Her father’s place was several miles out of town, along a wild stretch of the coast. Bracketed on one side by a rock cliff and the wild sea, the other side was forest and meadow and an inland stream that ran through the property.
Jacob met them at the door with a friendly brown dog that wagged its tail and sniffed everyone very enthusiastically.
“Samantha!”
Sam hugged him fiercely, happy to see him after so long apart. “Dad!”
The pirates stood by politely, smiling at the scene, except for Jack who immediately brightened at the sight of the dog and bent to scratch him behind the ears. “You’re a good puppy!”
“Dad,” Sam said, holding him at arm’s length and studying him. “You said you were sick in your letter. You look fine to me.”
“Oh, that,” Jacob said, waving a hand dismissively. “It turned out to be some bad spaghetti sauce at the local tavern. I was fine again two days after I sent the letter.”
“Dad!” Sam glared at him. “You scared me to death! I thought you were dying!”
“Well, I felt like I was dying!” Jacob protested. “Not only was I sick, but bad marinara sauce is a crime against nature!”
“I don’t believe this!”
“Well, you’re here now, aren’t you? And it got you away from that fruitcake Jonas.”
“True…” Sam hedged on her anger. “And I am glad you’re alright.”
“See? All’s well that ends well.”
“Men,” Sam muttered under her breath.
“I heard that, Sam. Now introduce me to your friends.”
Sam introduced them, warily, and although Jacob lifted an eyebrow as she described how they had met, he happily shook their hands and thanked them for bringing his daughter to him. He eyed Jack the hardest though, and Jack eyed him back, feeling a little awkward. He wondered if maybe he should have brought the man some rum. Rum was the great equalizer.
As Jacob showed them around though, Jack quickly forgot about the rum and instead became increasingly ecstatic. “This place is perfect!” he exclaimed excitedly. He turned to grin at Sam. “You can see the sea and there’s a little stream for fishing!” He glanced around and then pointed at the dog. “And it has a dog!”
She glanced between him and her father and frowned a bit. “Yes, that’s very exciting. I’m a little freaked out that my father and my boyfriend are so alike though…”
Jack lifted his brows in surprise. “Boyfriend?”
Sam froze. “Ummm… er… did I say ‘boyfriend’? I think I mean ‘friend that is a boy’.”
“No, no!” Jack crowed, looking delighted. “You said ‘boyfriend’!”
Jacob glanced wryly at his daughter. “Why do you always pick the crazy ones?”
Sam glared at him. “Did you not just hear me say that my father and my boyfriend are so alike?”
“You’re just like your mother,” Jacob retorted.
“Apparently.” Sam sighed. She glanced at Jack who was still grinning broadly at her. “Oh, for… let’s not rush things! You’re going off to be a pirate anyway!”
Jack sobered. “Well, maybe I won’t now. Maybe I’ll stay here and fish.”
“Maybe you’ll ask my permission first!” Jacob argued.
“Maybe I’ll bring a lifetime’s supply of rum,” Jack suggested.
“Maybe I keep the fishing poles in the shed out back,” Jacob mused.
“Maybe I’ll run off and become a pirate queen, leaving you two here to be crazy together,” Sam declared.
“Sam!” Both Jacob and Jack looked at her, hurt.
Daniel elbowed her in the ribs. “Are you sure you don’t just want to marry Jonas?”
Sam sighed.
On the way back to the house, Jacob took them through his garden, lush with corn and beans and tomatoes. “Look at this,” Jacob said proudly, holding up a tomato half the size of his head. “They’re amazing! I can make sauce just like your grandmother’s!”
“Your dad can cook?” Jack was very excited.
Sam rolled her eyes. “Maybe you and my dad should date. You’re perfect for each other.”
Jack frowned. “Nah, he wouldn’t look half as hot as you do in that blue dress.”
Sam snorted in a very unladylike manner.
It was when they got back to the house that the tale took a turn for the worse…
“Ah HA! I knew it!” Admiral Jonas, dressed to the nines in his official Naval uniform, met them in the foyer, his crew of similarly dressed officers arranged artfully behind him. He pointed at Sam and Jack and looked triumphant. “I knew that ship was yours, O’Neill! And now I have caught you, you scurvy pirate!”
They were all so surprised that no one was able to draw a pistol before they had half a dozen muskets pointed in their general direction.
“Pirates?” Jack exclaimed. He looked wildly around. “Where?”
“Oh please, O’Neill,” Jonas purred. “I know exactly what you are. Those two cannonballs in my ship are all the proof I need.”
Jack looked pleased. “We really kicked your little Navy asses, didn’t we?”
“Why you…” Jonas scowled.
“Jonas, don’t be stupid!” Sam said, holding her hands out in a placating manner. “Captain Jack didn’t abduct me, I came of my own freewill.”
Jonas smirked. “Oh yes, I know. An even better reason to hang him as a warning to all pirates!”
“Hang me?” Jack looked mortified. He reached up to put a hand on his own throat. “That’s hardly a pleasant way to go. How about I drink too much rum and then fall overboard instead.”
“No, no,” Jonas cackled. “It’s hanging for you!”
Jack looked thoughtful. “What about the rest of my crew?”
Jonas rolled his eyes impatiently. “I don’t care about them. They can take your crappy ship and leave.”
“And Sam?”
“She’s too much trouble to me. I need a real woman who knows how to cook and clean and take care of a man.”
“And you wonder why I left you,” Sam muttered.
“Well,” Jack said, hesitating pensively. “Then I guess I have no choice in the matter…”
“Yes” Jonas grinned with satisfaction.
“Good bye!” Jack turned suddenly and ran out the door.
“Argh!” Jonas roared at his men. “Get him!”
The soldiers ran out the door in hot pursuit, followed by Jonas screaming orders. Sam exchanged a glance with Daniel and they quickly followed.
They hesitated just outside the door, watching as Jack weaved his way through the garden and then into the small forest. The soldiers followed, trampling the garden plants and running into the woods behind him. Jonas stopped short of the forest and shrieked for someone to catch Captain Jack.
“He’ll never get away,” Jacob said worriedly. “No doubt Jonas has the local constable and his men waiting around the property.”
Sam bit her lip, her stomach roiling in nervousness. “Oh, Jack… you idiot!”
As if to illustrate her point, Jack suddenly broke from the trees in the distance and ran along the edge of the cliff, seemingly searching for a way down to the sea. Jonas laughed in glee and raised his musket.
“No!” Sam shouted, hearing Daniel do the same behind her.
But the shot rang out, and Jack stumbled and turned, looking back at them. His hands rose to his chest, a bright red stain blooming on the white of his shirt below them. And then… he fell, arching off the cliff and disappearing from view.
“JACK!” Sam screamed, feeling her heart burst in two.
Behind her, the rest of the crew added their shouts to hers.
In front of them Jonas laughed manically, deliriously happy and triumphant.
++
Teal’c and Bra’tac went down with the soldiers to find Jack’s body in the water.
Sam sat with Daniel and Jacob in the kitchen while Jonas stood in the doorway, a pleased smirk on his face. It was wiped away when Teal’c came through the door carrying a pair of wet leather boots and a soaked pistol. He laid them down carefully on the table. “It is all we could find,” he said softly. “The tide had taken him before we could descend.”
Sam lowered her chin. She never cried, but…
“How do you know he’s dead?” Jonas demanded.
One of his men stepped forward. “You shot him in the chest, sir, and he fell nearly a ship’s height into the sea. No doubt the sharks got him and made short work of him before we got there. There was nowhere for him to swim ashore anyway.”
Jonas smiled at that. “Sharks? He was eaten by sharks?”
“I believe so, sir.”
“Well,” he leveled a satisfied stare at Sam. “A fitting end for a scurvy pirate.”
She glared at him. “Don’t you have to be returning to the Old World now?”
He stood. “I certainly do. And it’ll be a wonderful return indeed when I come back bearing 3 pirate prisoners from Jack O’Neill’s crew!”
“What?” Sam blinked at him. “You said you had no interest in them!”
Behind her, the 3 pirates stiffened in surprise, and Jonas’s men raised their muskets in warning.
“Well, I changed my mind!”
“You sad, silly little man!” Sam flung at him. “Thank GOD I never married you!”
“God doesn’t exist,” Jonas said with a sneer. “There’s only me!”
“This is who you want to lead you?” Sam demanded of the 6 soldiers standing behind him. “This nutjob with a God complex?”
One of the soldiers shrugged. “There’s a really good Christmas bonus,” he said.
“It’s a living,” another one chirped.
“Come along,” Jonas ordered, motioning at the three pirates. He started forward and then stopped suddenly as Jacob stood up in front of him.
“I don’t think so, Admiral Hanson,” Jacob said with a disapproving glare.
Jonas glared right back. “Step aside, old man. You’re not in the Navy anymore!”
“No, but I still have plenty of friends in the Naval office, and many of them come to visit me.” He smiled. “The stream out back has huge trout.”
Jonas hesitated, but then his expression became suspicious. “They don’t suffer pirates anymore than I do, Carter.”
Jacob lifted one manly brow. “No, they don’t. And they don’t suffer incompetent, drunken, power-hungry officers either. Especially ones who holiday in the Caribbean and maybe get a little too friendly with the local livestock.”
Jonas’s eyes widened in horror. “But how… you…”
Jacob smiled. “I do so love the Caribbean in winter. Go there every year if I can…”
“It’s not true!” Jonas shrieked.
Jacob shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll believe you over me… right?”
Jonas looked panicked.
“Of course, if you just leave right now and take your men with you, all the way back to the Old World, I’ll probably forget all about it by the time one of my admiral buddies comes to visit. I am an old man, you know.”
Jonas stared at him in horror, and then in anger. Jacob simply lifted his eyebrows and waited.
“Sir?” the soldiers prompted, muskets still raised.
“Forget it,” Jonas finally said. “To the docks on the double. We’re getting out of here. They’re piss-poor pirates anyway!”
“We really do suck!” Daniel stated with a grin.
“Completely!” Bra’tac agreed.
Jonas gave them one more withering glare and then marched from the house with his posse, disappearing down the lane.
Bra’tac waited a few minutes and then rose. “I’ll follow and make sure their ship leaves.”
Jacob nodded in agreement.
With that they all sat around the table and glanced at each other. The smiles turned to frowns. Sam gave a sad sigh.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” Jacob finally said. “Jack seemed like a good fellow.”
“He was,” Sam said forlornly. “He was arrogant and clueless.”
“And really, really irritating,” Daniel added with a small smile.
“And his jokes were extremely unfunny,” Teal’c stated, quietly.
They looked at each other.
“And he was perfect,” Sam concluded, sadly.
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“Indeed,” Teal’c murmured.
“Well, thank God for that. I was beginning to think you wanted me dead!” The voice came from the doorway, and they all turned, startled.
Jack stood there, dripping wet and bootless, his shirt a mass of purple swirls.
“JACK!” Sam leapt up from the table. “But how… why…”
“What the hell, Jack?” Daniel rose as well, followed by Teal’c.
Jack stuck a finger in his ear, twisting it and squinting as he tried to get the water out. “I faked my own death!” He grinned. “Pretty good, huh?”
Sam shot toward him and threw herself into his arms, knocking him back into the wall.
“Oof!” he grunted, and then he smiled down at her. “Miss me?”
She kissed him. On the mouth. With tongue.
“Mmmmmm,” he said, smiling against her lips.
She drew back from him and then glared, throwing a light punch into his gut. “Damn you! We thought you were dead!”
“Unf!” He grimaced and held the place she had hit him. “Ow! What are you trying to do, finish the job?”
“How did you do this, O’Neill?” Teal’c demanded.
Jack stood and reached inside his shirt, pulling out the squashed corpse of a giant tomato. “Jacob’s finest! Looked just like blood! Then all I had to do was take a dive off the cliff into the water. I’m an excellent swimmer, you know. I left my boots and pistol and just swam down the coast until no one could see me and then climbed out and waited.”
“Jack,” Daniel exclaimed. “That’s almost… brilliant!”
“I know!” Jack said proudly.
“What if he’d actually shot you?” Sam demanded.
Jack made a face. “Are you kidding? Navy officers are the worst shots in the world!”
Jacob cleared his throat.
Jack swallowed. “Um, except for you, sir. Of course I didn’t mean you.”
“Right,” Jacob agreed, amused.
“Besides,” Jack said, glancing around. “None of this is important. Hanson is on his way home, and I’m alive. There’s something else that we need to tend to.”
They all looked at him expectantly, and he rolled his eyes. Then he grinned at Sam. “Sam kissed me. On the mouth! I am definitely her boyfriend!”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Sam muttered. But she smiled too.
“So, now what do we do?” Jack asked hopefully.
++
The kiss was long and wet and sweet, and when she pulled back he was smiling at her.
“Bye,” she said, a little wistfully.
“Bye,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll miss you.”
“Me too.”
He held her hand until she walked away, and then she was climbing up into the newly christened ship: the Copernicus.
She smiled as Daniel grinned at her and motioned her toward the big chair. She glanced at Teal’c, who stood waiting by the wheel. “Take us out, T.”
He inclined his head with a smile and the ship started out of port. On the dock, Jack and Jacob waved at her and then turned to trundle away, fishing poles propped on their shoulders.
She took a deep breath and lowered herself into the chair.
“Our new captain needs a name,” Bra’tac said with a grin.
“Sam the Seductive,” Daniel suggested. Sam blanched.
“Sam the Psychotic!” Bra’tac yelled.
“That doesn’t technically start with an ‘S’,” Daniel protested.
“Sam the Sinister,” Teal’c offered, and she smiled at him.
“Ooh, I like that.”
“Sam the sterile,” Daniel mused.
“Sterile? What the hell?” She shot Daniel a warning glance. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you…”
He simply smiled innocently.
“Sam the Superior,” Bra’tac stated with finality.
They all stared at him.
“Super Sam,” he amended, nodding.
Teal’c nodded.
Daniel grinned. “I think you got it, Bra’tac!”
They looked at Sam and she smiled at them. “Yes,” she said. “I think I like that.”
And thus, the tale of Samantha Carter and the Savage Pirates ends for now. A happy ending, because all good tales end that way, and this is nothing if not a good tale. ;)
~end~
To be cross-posted eventually to crackified_gate. ;)