AN: Hi guys! It's me again. Usually I hate long author's notes at the beginning but I needed to say a little bit first. First thing, this story was loosely based on the information regarding Jack Sparrow's background found on wikipedia but has been altered a bit. Think of it as my fiction over the skeleton of canon "facts" that have been provided. Secondly, Jack seems a bit OOC at first here. Those of you that have read my stuff before know that I love Jack just the way he is (the cad!) and I'm not about to change him. More so, this story is about Jack Sparrow becoming Jack Sparrow, so give me a little time and I promise to get you there. ;)
With that said, please please please review if you read so I know if you like it or not. The chapters will get longer as this progresses. Now, without further ado...
"Perhaps on the rare occasion pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy... piracy itself can be the right course?" - POTC, Governor Swann
"The time to make up your mind about people is never." - The Philadelphia Story
An Act of Piracy
Chapter One
"Aye! Avast ye scurvy dogs!"
Jack Teague sat in the floor of his small home, wooden boat in hand. He pushed it through the rough blue "waters" of his mother's favorite rug and eyed her knitting out of the corner of his eye. He had to be sure to keep his voice low, lest his mother hear him talking like a pirate and box his ears. When it appeared this particular blasphemy had gone unnoticed, he continued.
"Raise the sails! Hoist the jib! Hard to starboard!" he whispered, repeating the instructions he had heard at the dock, stringing them together in a way he wasn't even sure was right. In front of him the fire blazed in the fireplace, warming his small hands as he pushed the little boat along.
Pirates were a sore subject in the Teague household, at least for his mother. Even at the tender age of eight, Jack had learned that what boded ill for Mrs. Teague boded ill for everyone. She was a wonderful woman, really... loving and kind. But ever since his father...
As if knowing that thought, the door swung open and banged back on its hinges. John Teague, Captain John Teague (as he was constantly correcting people) stepped in. Or stumbled, as it were.
"Da!" Jack screamed, boat and imaginary pirates immediately forgotten as the real thing stood before him. He ran to him without thought and smiled when he collided into his father's legs. Captain Teague had to steady himself on the wall as his knees threatened to buckle, and Jack didn't think it was the hit that caused this.
"Aye, lad!" John Teague said, his voice gruff and commanding. Still, he reached down and ruffled Jack's hair. "Did ye miss the ol' Cap'n?"
Jack looked up at him with eyes that were full of adoration.
"I did! I did!" he said, but his father's eyes were now fixed solidly behind him, to his mother in her chair. Jack shifted a little; eight years old was not too young to realize what was going on around him, and he was a brighter boy than most. A fight was brewing in the Teague household, as strong as any storm at sea, and he had a feeling he was about to be caught up in the middle of it.
He tugged on his father's jacket and kohl-rimmed eyes swung down to look at him. Captain Teague was drunk, that much was certain... the spicy scent of rum rolled off of him in waves, but Jack didn't mind. His father wasn't a mean drunk; he didn't beat them like some of the other father's he knew of and he hardly ever yelled. Still, his mother despised the drink, and this was just more fuel to the inevitable fire.
Wanting to put it off, Jack offered his father his most charming smile.
"Did you bring me a present, Da?" he asked. His father smiled and clapped the young boy on the back with his right hand.
"Did ye think the Cap'n would come back to ye with nary a gift?" he laughed, and Jack jumped back, eager.
"Is it treasure?" he asked, nearly breathless with anticipation. Again, the Captain laughed.
"A boy after me own black heart! Is it treasure? Aye, t'is."
Out of his pocket he pulled five gold coins which Jack jumped to retrieve with wide eyes. He stood there for hours... no, minutes... no, seconds... (time was meaningless and happiness was such an easy thing to come by then) as the shine of the gold reflected back into his eyes. He moved his hand back and forth and watched the shine dance in the fire light. He looked back up at his dad and for one moment their dark eyes locked. Age was no difference. Eight or forty eight, they understood each other in that moment.
The Captain smiled.
"That's not all, lad," he said, and produced a large leather hat from hehind his back. Jack's eyes lit with joy that couldn't even compare with that from a moment ago.
"Is that a pirate hat?" he asked, barely above a whisper. Again the Captain laughed, and plopped the hat on Jack's head. It was too large, not made for a child, and slumped over his eyes.
"Aye, boy. Stole it off a dying man meself! And now that ye have a hat be fitting a pirate, you can be one just like..."
That was it. That little phrase was the thing to end it. Jack's mother stood, knitting hitting the floor, not allowing him to finish the statement his father had been about to make.
"John, enough!"
Jack looked at her, her familiar face twisted and unrecognizable by the emotions that coursed through her. Had he been old enough, Jack might have been able to read the mixture of pain and anger, love and loss that so clearly lined his mother's face. As it was, he took one look at his mother's face and simply knew it was time for him to leave. He was too young to understand her despair but old enough to know there must have been a good reason behind it. A reason he was simply too inexperienced to understand.
Taking the hat off, he backed away from his father and looked back to his mum, who nodded at him curtly. He understood completely, and grabbed his boat from the floor to take with him to his room. He paused in the doorway, wooden boat and hat pressed tightly into his chest, and looked at his parents. They were outsiders, their emotions too big and alien to understand.
Why were adults so complicated? He didn't think being a pirate was so bad.
He put the hat back on his head and smiled.
In fact, he kind of liked the idea.
Sixteen years later...
"Mistuh Teague? Mistuh Teague? Mistuh..."
"Captain, son," Jack said dryly, without opening his eyes. He was sitting in the back of some pub (Jack hadn't cared to find out the name) with his feet on the table, looking thoroughly unapproachable. Or so he had thought. Until he had been approached.
"I'm sorry, Cap'n. Mum asked me to fetch ye. Said she tol' you this morning but was expecting ye might forget... Miss Houghton is coming over tonight. For dinner."
Jack's eyes flew open and looked at the small servant boy, Joshua, whose mother was the housekeeper. Hearing those words, Jack could hardly help himself... he winced in such a dramatic way that the boy almost laughed out loud.
"Joshua, lad, son... why don't you do the ol' Captain a favor and tell her I was called out to sea. That I..."
The boy shifted, clearly nervous.
"Mum said you might say that. She told me to tell you that you told her that last time." Jack opened his mouth but the boy went on, "And the time before that."
Jack sighed and touched his chin, leaning back a little farther. "So I did." He thought for a moment, the rum on the table nearly tempting him into sending the boy back with another lie. Joshua shifted once more and Jack figured he'd been given orders by his nosy biddy of a mother to not leave until the Captain had agreed to come home for dinner.
"Yes, well, tell Miss Houghton to expect me at seven," he said, realizing he had no way out. Taking his feet from the table, he leaned forward to grasp his rum.
"Yessir, but she's going to be there at half past six," the boy said. Jack took a gulp of his rum but otherwise his look was unwavering.
"She'll wait," he said, and he knew he was right. Caroline Houghton may have been a good many things, but assertive was not of them. You didn't have to know her well to know that much about her, and Jack knew her better than he cared to.
Joshua nodded, his courage spent, and scurried out of the pub. That left Jack alone at his table, with only his rum and his thoughts for company. Sighing again, he finished his rum in one great swig and slammed the cup down on the table. No one turned to look at him, and that was fine by Jack. The only problem now, with the boy AND the rum gone, was that he was left with only his thoughts.
Groaning, he rubbed his face.
His thoughts were this:
Jack Teague considered himself to be an uncomplicated sort of man. He had a steady job for the East India Trading Company (which he didn't love) sailing the seas of the Caribbean (which he did). He also had a steady stream of women who thought he was "handsome" and giggled when he walked the docks in his Captain's uniform. He ended most of his days like the other sailors did: in a pub surrounded by women and rum (thought he liked to think he was surrounded by more women than most). Life wasn't perfect but it was predictable, and Jack was constantly telling himself that there was no reason to be unsatisfied with it when there was nothing outright wrong with it. It was just, well, a bit boring perhaps.
There was one problem, but that problem was a big one. Jack had a terrible vice and it was neither women nor the drink: it was curiosity. He often wondered for hours about the outer reaches of the map... the blank places he had never visited and the seas never sailed. Every time he left with a ship and crew he found it harder and harder to return to land. Every new place he saw made him wonder about the ones he would never see. It was almost as if there was a hold inside of him that could never be filled. Not a heartache, per say. Just an... empty space, really.
His mother had spent many a day telling him how silly it was to let himself get so carried away, and he had listened to each lecture knowing she was right. He was an adult now, after all, he thought wryly. Well beyond the age of entertaining ideas of piracy. He should do his job, enjoy his rum, and marry the girl that had been promised to him.
Caroline Houghton.
Now that was complicated.
She was the daughter of the governor, a pretty girl with auburn hair and pale skin. She was everything he should have wanted: polite, attractive, and well-bred. His dear old mum had nearly died of shock and relief when he'd told her they were to be wed. But despite these things... nay, because of these things... Jack found her completely undesirable. She never spoke up out of turn and she never became angry when treated unjustly. In fact, she rarely showed any type of emotion at all. She bored him and, because his life bored him as well, she had become the thing in which to define all that unhappiness. She was the reason he was so restless and uncertain.
She was the reason for all of this.
Frowning, he looked out the window, watching the sun slide down the length of sky as seven o'clock drew ever nearer.
"More rum!" he called to the bar wench, and she began making her way towards him. Rum might not have fixed everything but... wait a minute. What the devil was he on about? Of course rum fixed everything!
The bar wench filled his glass with rum and smiled at him. He met her smile with one that could only be described as wicked, and raised his glass to the room.
"Here, here!" he shouted, and the girl settled herself into his lap.
Across the room, several men answered his toast with a smile, not even knowing why and not caring. Such was the way of sailors (and pirates), they were prepared to toast to just about damn anything.
Even if the toast was to loss of freedom.
Aye, even then.