Heath did not like this. Not one bit.

Robin had taken a risk and snuck into the room early to help get ready. He'd snagged a few things from various places in the ship: a comb, a small bottle of leave-in conditioner, a washcloth, some powder, even a vial of rose oil from the first mate's bathroom.

Heath wondered why he'd waited so long to bring them any of this if it was so readily available to him. She decided to ask, because the thought was bothering her. He answered that if they used any of this too often, the crew would get suspicious.

Fair enough. After that, she sat silently on the floor and watched Robin turn Olivia from a crack zombie back into something of what she'd used to be.

The pirates let the prisoners use the bathroom and brush their teeth once a day. They permitted them to shower once every two. Luckily for Robin, Olivia's hair was still wet from hers, so it wasn't matted to her skull with blood like usual.

Olivia closed her eyes, knocking her ankles together under the stool. Heath was almost as nervous as she figured Liv was. James would never forgive her if she let Olivia die.

When Robin was done with her hair, she was nearly unrecognizable from the scraped-up mutt of a girl the pirates had turned her into over the past days. She was Olivia again, with long honey blonde hair and flashing blue eyes and a face that could make a pirate captain fall in love with her and his first mate jealous. Heath smiled. This just might work.

Olivia, however, didn't look very happy. She looked at herself in the hand mirror Robin had picked from the pocket of a fellow deckhand. Frowning at her image, she glanced behind her at Robin. "How did you do that?"

He shrugged. "It's amazing what a little conditioner and some powder can do."

They were all silent for a moment. They'd achieved their goal, but this only made Heath more agitated.

Robin, whom Heath was beginning to think of as Liv's fairy godmother, had also produced a fresh set of clothing, these from his own room. Olivia had shuddered when he told her they'd belonged to his deceased mother.

She stood up, now. The red fabric of the dress rustled around her legs, thin and airy as sheets of fog settled around her hips. It was low cut and tight enough to accentuate Olivia's newly prominent ribs, but the overall impression was desirable. Robin nodded his approval, raking her hair to one side so that it fell over her shoulder in a wavy torrent of tumbled locks.

He looked her up and down. "You're ready?"

Olivia shook her head. "I really don't want to do this," she said, her voice full of an earnest need for reassurance.

"You'll be okay," Robin told her. "Just remember the plan."

She gave a harsh chuckle, twisting her hair between her fingers with wonder. "Yeah, the plan's so specific. 'Just seduce him, Olivia. It's not that difficult. Just slit his throat. It's whatever.'"

Heath grinned. Looking like her old self again seemed to bring back a small inkling of her old personality, for better or worse.

Robin rolled his eyes. "You'll be fine, Livi. He won't know what hit him."