Fight For Freedom |4| The Ascension

Chapter Twenty Nine: The Curse Of The Black Spot

"So..." McKenzie smirked, sidling up to her daughter in the console room. "That's a nice ring," she complimented casually.

Zoë raised an eyebrow, sipping her tea. "Да."

"Anything you'd like to share?" McKenzie poked her head around the rotor to try and catch her daughter unawares.

"Нет." The blonde smiled, enjoying teasing her mother.

McKenzie pouted. "Come on!"

Zoë laughed. "It is so easy to wind you up!"

"So you'll tell me now?" McKenzie asked hopefully.

"Fine," Zoë sighed, smiling. "Really, it's no big deal. It's not like we're engaged or anything, it's just... it's just a pretty ring."

"Just a pretty ring," McKenzie repeated, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, a promise, we decided," Zoë allowed.

Her mother's eyebrows knitted together. "A promise?"

"Well, the two of us, we don't really have much. I've only existed for two years and he's only been out of captivity for one. We haven't got anything to give each other except, well, the rest of our lives..." Zoë trailed off, hesitating at her mother's expression.

McKenzie's eyes had widened so dramatically you could tell without her removing her visor. "You've promised each other the rest of your lives?"

Zoë shrugged. "Well, yeah, I guess." She blushed. "I mean, there's no one I'd rather spend it with."

"My babies are promised," McKenzie sighed wistfully. "Oh, it's sailing. It's sailing so good."

"Sailing?" the Doctor echoed, entering the console room with Amy and Rory at his heels. "Ooh, that sounds fun. How about that for a next trip, eh, Rory? Maybe we could find some pirates!"

Rory blinked. "Pirates?"

McKenzie grinned. "We're going to need some rum."

"Rum?" Pietro blinked, rubbing his damp hair with a towel as he entered the console room. "I like rum."

"Me too," McKenzie grinned, dancing over to him and throwing his towel onto the jump seat so she could pull him over to the central console. "Let's go meet some pirates!" She threw the dematerialisation lever.

***

Five minutes later, they were being held captive in the Captain's cabin of an old pirate ship, having been discovered knocking around below decks.

"Yo ho ho," Amy scoffed. "I could have told you nobody actually said that."

"Oh, yeah?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Oh, yeah? Well, you didn't say anything!"

"Stop!" the Captain shouted, having had enough of their bickering. "What do you mean, you found us? We made no signal."

"Our sensors picked you up," Pietro tried to explain. "Ship in distress."

The man, Captain Avery, frowned. "Sensors?"

"Ah," Zoë realised. "Yes. Okay, problem word. Seventeenth century. Our ship automatically sort of noticed-ish that your ship was in a bit of a pickle."

"That blue crate?" Avery raised an eyebrow. The Doctor nodded emphatically.

"That is more magic, Captain Avery," the boatswain assured him. "They're spirits. How else would they have found their way below decks?"

McKenzie made a face. "I want to say multidimensional engineering, but I don't think that translates very well into seventeenth-century pirate-ish." She turned around, hoping to appeal to the rest of the crew, few though they were. "Okay, look. I'm the Angel, he's the Doctor. This is Amy, Rory, Pietro, and Zoë. We're sailors, same as you." She turned back to Avery to find a pistol aimed at her face. She nudged it to the side with her pinky, then smiled pleasantly at the man. "Well, except for the gun thing, mostly. And the beardiness."