AN: I hate doing this chapter
____
Gibbs stared at the wooden shack, which looked like it might crumble any second under a strong wind.
Snow slid off the roof in slow, lazy sheets, as if the mountain itself was shrugging. Wind whistled through the trees, making Ginny beside Gibbs shiver. Somewhere behind them, the path they'd climbed vanished under fresh powder, erasing their footprints as neatly as a guilty man wiping a ledger.
Gibbs pulled his coat tighter, then looked at Jack as if tightening his coat could also tighten Jack's thinking.
"Captain," Gibbs said, voice strained between politeness and disbelief, "I'm asking again. What is it?"
Jack stood with his hat angled just so, rum bottle hugged like a child hugs his favourite toy, and a grin that suggested he was about to unveil the world's most brilliant secret.
"It's not just a shack," Jack said.
Gibbs blinked. "It's a shack."
Jack lifted a finger like a professor about to lecture on the finer points of maritime law. "It's our help."
Gibbs opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn't have enough warmth in his lungs to argue properly. Besides, half the things Jack said sounded like nonsense until they somehow turned favorable for them. It was infuriating. It was also, annoyingly, working.
Behind them, Ginny leaned heavily on Gibbs' arm. She tried not to show it, but every step through the snow had been a negotiation with her own body. Bonney, bundled up against Robin's chest, made a small, miserable sound that hovered between a whine and a sneeze.
Robin, masked and hooded, adjusted Bonney's blanket with careful fingers. She said nothing, but her eyes kept flicking to Ginny the way someone looked at a candle in a strong wind—half afraid it would go out if she blinked too long.
Augur's breath came out in thin, steady lines. He looked unimpressed by the cold, his face emotionless even as strong cold winds flew by. It made Robin wonder if he was a robot.
Ragetti was shivering so hard his teeth might develop cracks, but then again, his teeth could be counted on one hand. Pintel tried to stand heroic and a strong icy wind almost turned him into a statue.
Jack took one last swig of rum, then tapped the shack with the toe of his boot like he was checking if it was real.
The door creaked.
A tall old woman stepped out.
Tall first. Old second.
She had wild, pale hair that stuck out like it was refusing to obey gravity on principle. Her face was sharp, her eyes sharper, and she wore a long coat like it was a declaration of war against winter. She looked like the sort of person who could perform surgery with one hand while throwing insults with the other, and somehow the insults would land more precisely.
Her gaze swept over them. One, two, three, four, five—
She paused on Bonney.
Then she paused on Ginny.
Then she paused on Jack, as if she was trying to determine whether he was ill, drunk, or simply built wrong.
"What," she said, not as a question, but as an accusation aimed at the concept of visitors itself. "I don't accept visitors."
Jack's smile remained. His posture suggested he'd been invited personally.
The woman jerked her chin toward the mountain road. "If you want help, go to Bighorn. Or go to Drum Castle. That's where people go when they want to whine at officials and get told to wait."
Pintel took a step forward with the urgency of a man who believed volume was a form of authority. "We need medical help! Dire need! Very dire! Dire enough that—"
The woman's eyes slid to him.
Her expression didn't change much, but somehow it got meaner anyway.
"No amount of medical science can heal your face," she said, calm as snowfall. "Sorry."
Silence.
Pintel froze. His cheeks turned red. It wasn't clear if it was from the cold or humiliation, but either way he looked like he wanted to bury himself in the snow.
Ragetti made a sound that might have been sympathy. It came out like a cough.
Bonney sneezed.
It was a small sneeze, the sort a child tried to hold in and failed. It echoed in the cold air like a tiny cannon.
Bonney sniffled, then pressed her face deeper into Robin's coat and mumbled something that sounded like, "Cold."
The old woman's eyes widened a fraction—just enough to show she was still human, which was unfortunate for anyone hoping she'd be easier to argue with if she weren't(Jack).
"It's not right," she snapped, stepping forward, "to have a baby out in this cold!"
Jack opened his mouth—possibly to reassure her, possibly to charm her, possibly to explain that he'd once survived a storm that tried to kill him personally—
"Get in," the woman barked. "The lot of you!"
Gibbs blinked. "We're—"
"IN."
Well. Who could decline a tall, old, terrifying woman inviting them into her isolated mountain home like it was a command from the weather itself?
Definitely not Jack.
Jack walked in first.
Gibbs watched him go with the resigned look of a man watching a captain stroll into a cave because a coin landed heads up.
Inside, the shack was not what any reasonable person would expect from a doctor.
It was, in Jack's opinion, what you'd expect from a witch who kept her medicine in jars labeled "probably safe" and "don't ask."
There were shelves of bottles filled with liquids of suspicious colors. Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling like dried warnings. Strange tools sat on tables: clamps, needles, hooks, a saw that looked like it had opinions. A fireplace crackled in the corner, fighting the cold with real effort. The place smelled like smoke, alcohol, and something sharp enough to clear a conscience.
Jack took one look around and whispered, "Charming."
"The name's Kureha. And for the record I am still 124 years old. Still in my youth." The old young lady introduced herself.
"The name's Captain Jack Sparrow."
"Yeah yeah, recognised you from your bounty poster. Pretty big number for a rookie pirate not even in the Grand Line."
"Well I am here now, huh."
She grumbled while she worked, cursing under her breath in a way that sounded like she considered swearing a form of seasoning.
Jack leaned closer to Gibbs. "Is it normal for doctors to sound like they are making up stuff as they go through? Because I don't think those things shouldn't mix together."
Gibbs muttered, "Captain, we've met doctors who charge you to die. This one might be an improvement."
Ragetti and Pintel, warmed by the fire and their own lack of survival instincts, began wandering around, peering at jars.
Pintel tapped a bottle. "What d'you think this is?"
Ragetti squinted. "Pickles."
Pintel nodded. "Doctor pickles."
Kureha appeared beside them without warning and hit both of them on the head so hard the sound had a clean, professional ring to it.
"Don't touch," she said. "This is not a museum."
Pintel yelped and held his head. "I didn't touch! I was pointing!"
"You were thinking about touching," Kureha snapped. "That counts."
Ragetti rubbed his scalp and muttered something about hostile hospitality.