Before movie, the Black Pearl, the compass that fails to point north or the tattoo of a sparrow, Jack Sparrow was a young stow-away that found his way to the Caribbean. This is a tale of his young life until he first comes across the Black Pearl as a man of 20 and begins an affair with it that almost causes his death later on. I hope you enjoy. I wanted to play around a little bit with Pirates of the Caribbean, that has become my new favorite movie, and this is my first attempt at it. I think that Jack probably grew up on the sea and was a pirate practically his whole life but I wanted to play around with the question of what if he hadn't spent his whole life on the sea. Obviously this story is AU. In this story I wrote so that in the beginning Jack didn't want to be a pirate, but rather a captain of a ship with a crew that would be loyal. I think that a turn of events caused him to become a pirate. Comments are always appreciated.

Discailmer: I don't own any rites to Disney or have any affiliation with the movie and its creators. I am making not a single shilling off this.

Will Turner: "We're going to steal a ship?" "That ship?"
Jack Sparrow: "Commandeer!" "We're going to commandeer that ship. Nautical term."

The sky was blue and the wind was blowing in the sails, as a ship of the English fleet pulled out from the port towards the glistening sun. The weather was extraordinarily good for England in the autumn; the normally gray clouds and misting rain replaced with white ones on a brilliant blue sky. It was slightly cold but his blue jacket that he wore over his white cotton shirt kept the chill off his skin. He sat on the old creaking dock away from all of the activity in the port. The wood was starting to fade and rot, the salt water dissolving it. The dock heaved with each lap of the waves but he didn't even noticed. He was too caught up in the ship's moorings, the way the wind caught the pristine white sails and sent the ship cruising out to the open ocean. The breeze blew through his short brown hair and occasionally a drop of water from the ocean hit him, but even though the water was cool each droplet warmed his mind. He came here every day and the sights he saw were familiar and comfortable.

The boy wished that he were on that ship headed for somewhere grand and full of adventure, the Caribbean perhaps, away from the dull and dreary existence that was life on the main land. Jack Sparrow was by no stretch of the imagination a land lover. He longed to be on the high seas commandeering his own ship with a loyal crew that would follow him to Davy Jones. Since he and his widowed mother lived close to the ocean the salt air was constantly on his tongue, teasing him, begging him to leave his home and go to sea. He had to fight the sea's tantalizing call on a daily basis. He mother thought he was crazy to want to out to sea and get himself killed, but it was what he wanted to do. His mother would never tell him anything about his father, but he suspected it had something to do with the sea. If a life on the sea was good enough for his father it was good enough for him. If he was to die on the sea as his father before him, then so be it.

He could remember talking to a boy not that much older than himself who was a swab on the ship called the Wave Runner. He had used the word commandeer when describing his own dreams of one day getting off the Runner and sailing the high seas with a crew of his own. He remembered the word for it sounded so full of power and mystique; like only a chosen few people could ever commandeer as opposed to just sailing. He sometimes wondered where that boy was, what grand adventures he was on, or if he was even still alive. Many men perished on the mighty sea and many swabs were swept overboard by a violent storm and others died of scurvy or some other sea-born illnesses. Jack vowed that if he ever left England he would certainly not let such a terrible fate befall him. Yes, Jack Sparrow would not bend to the will of the sea, but rather be master of it, and no thieving pirate or tempest would ever steal his ship or end his life prematurely.

He looked around the port to see if there were any other ships that he could see and maybe be able to talk to the members of the crew. When he saw that no other vessels had any activity he sighed and walked from the dock that he sat on. He walked past various people that were standing there for the same reason as he; admiring another ship of the British fleet going out to sea on some gallant adventure.

When he reached the small port town Stonewall he walked down the cobblestone street without really noticing the people he was passing. He ran into someone who shouted: "Hey boy watch where you're going!", but he didn't even notice. The city was just another thing that kept him from achieving the things he wanted. Since only the privileged got to go to school in the neighboring town he had to help his poor mother at her job which was cleaning those privileged people's houses as their hire-out maid that assisted the house maids in washing the vast amount of ornate cloths that they wore. The rich wore many layers of clothing and it took many people to clean them properly. Helping his mother clean the houses of wealthy lords and their wives for a scant few shillings was something that he hated to do, but it was the only work that his mother could get. It paid well enough so that she could scrape money together to pay the rent, buy bread at the market, and keep threadbare clothing on their backs. He continued walking past the clothing shops that he would never be able to afford to buy cloths at and the smith that manufactured the swords that someday hoped to wear at his hip along with a pistol; the true effects of a sea-faring man.

"Why isn't it young Jack Sparrow ", someone said from his left side, and he turned with a smile to the woman that he knew was standing there at her fruit stall with a kind smile mirroring his on her face.

"Good morning, Mrs. Myrna."

"Aye, that it is, that it is."

She flashed another smile in his direction and then she spoke again:

" And what are ye doing out and about this early in the mornin'?"

" What I do every morning, Ma'am."

Mrs. Myrna was an elderly friend of his mother that talked with an accent not unlike that of a pirate or someone from the Caribbean. She was tall for a woman with deep blue eyes like that of the ocean. She did not dress in the drab clothes of the women of Stonewall or the fancy over-the-top outfits of the ladies of the neighboring city of West Port. Instead she wore vibrant blues and greens made of fabric he had seen on no one else. Her husband Jacob Myrna was an old man that had the same accent as she and he had the tan of a person that was born on the islands of the Caribbean. He was very tall and surprisingly strong who wore old cotton shirts that used to be white many years before with wind blown leather pants and beat-up black boots. He sometime told Jack stories of his days at sea as a shipmate and then as captain. Sometimes Jack dismissed his stories as those of a colorful old man, but he loved to hear them none the less and he found himself wishing them true. Come to think of it Mrs. Myrna was tinged with the same unchanging tan, despite both of them having spent at least twenty years in gray Stonewall. It was possible that they had both been pirates at one time, but he dare not ask either one of the Myrna's about this idea, for he might be wrong and the idea that he thought they were pirates might upset him. He suspected that these people, pirates or sailors had been friends of his father and that was how they had come to be friends with his soft-spoken mother.

" Ah, you've been to port again, day-dreaming of having your own ship, have you now?"

Jack nodded, a wistful smile on his young face. He seemed to glow as he spoke of having a ship.

"Yes Ma'am, one day I wish to commandeer a ship of my own someday, with a loyal crew of able-bodied men and sail the seas until the day I die."

"Commandeer?" "Such a word coming from such a young boy."

"I'm not that young, Mrs. Myrna. I'm twelve."

"Twelve are ye?" Well then you're not a boy any more, she said with glint in her eye, you're a young man now." "When you get this ship what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to sail around the whole world and be a merchant and sell my wares to people all over, and then maybe I'll gather a whole fleet of merchant ships and be a great ship captain. I'll be rich and give money to my mum, so that she doesn't have to wash anything ever again. Then she can hire people that are like how she used to be to clean her cloths and wash the walls."

"You want to be a trader now?" She cast him an amused glance. "What are you going to do about pirates that try to steal your wares."

"Ill run them through with my sword or maybe I'll shoot them with my pistol. No bloody pirate will touch my treasure."

She nodded, as if she suspected such an answer. She paused a moment before speaking;

"I 'spect you will lad, I 'spect you will." She looked him over as if wondering if he would actually do what he said. " And you mother, what does she think of all this?"

"She doesn't like it much, but she will when I bring her a treasure and mountains of shillings."

"I bet she will Jack, she'll be proud of you." "You better be runnin' along child or your mother will start to worry."

Jack smiled and ran off down the street until he heard the old women's voice calling after him:

"Hey Jack my boy be careful now"; and she tossed him a fresh ripe apple that he caught easily. Red delicious; his favorite. He bit into it, savoring the sweet taste of the fruit. It was the best thing that he had eaten in a least week.

"I will, thank you", he replied and he ran down the street, his coat whipping behind him.

As the boy ran down the street to his home Mrs. Myrna sighed.

"Ah that Jack Sparrow, his father's blood certainly runs in his veins."

For his sake she hoped that his father's impulsiveness didn't run in his veins as well.

XXX

Jack ran happily down the street with an extra leap in his step. His worn out boots made a clopping noise on each stone of the old street. The stones were worn down to the point that they were smooth like glass. In the cold rainy months many people slipped on the ice and went sliding to a painful fall. By his estimation his mother should be home by now and they would eat a meager dinner of bread and cheese. Sometimes they would have some soup with the bread as well, when his mother got some extra money at the end of the month from one of her employers. Even thought they lived in poor conditions they were grateful, since many people didn't have a place to say in the poor town of Stonewall.

At night when he couldn't sleep he would climb on the roof and look up at the hill to West Port where the rich slept in their feather comforter beds with the canopies on their four poster beds. His mother went to bed right after eating every night even before the sun had gone down since she was so tired from working from sun-up. Sometimes he would look in fascination at the stars and the moon in the sky when it was not cloudy, but he always found himself staring at the brightly-lit houses in the dark. He would think of his poor mother that had to trudge up that hill in all weather, sometimes with him in tow. He could remember walking up that hill in a rainstorm, each droplet hitting him like ice numbing his face. When they finally reached the house of Lord Fairmont cold and muddy they were told to go home, since filth such as them would not be allowed in muddy and sopping wet. Jack wanted to remind the lord that he had told them to come rain or shine and that he shouldn't go back on his word, but he knew that that would loose his mother her job and the lord paid her the most money out of all her employers. On those long nights he would find himself wondering why he had to live in the valley in a house with one drafty room and eat stale bread with half-rotten cheese with dirty water in a rusty tankard. He vowed to take his mother away from all this, this terrible existence. He would take his mother someplace warm and they would never be poor again.

Living in poverty had made Jack tough however, and the lessons he had learned growing up on the street would stay with him forever. By living life hard on the main land he would be able to take anything that the unforgiving sea would throw his way. When he reached the end of the street he stopped running and calmed his heaving lungs. He glanced at the clock that was located on the top of the church. The light was just coming on as the sun was going down. 6:00. His mother should have been home an hour ago.

He walked slowly the rest of the way to his home which was a small stone building at the end of a row of small stone buildings. The middle section of the poor lived in these one-room buildings and the upper part of the lower class lived in a building that had two rooms. Those who were the poorest of the poor slept it streets with their ragged cloths clutched to their bodies to stave off the chill of the British air. Even in the warm summer months the streets at night were cold and bitter. Some of Jack friend's were these poor people, but there was nothing that he could do for them.

He reached his house and was surprised to find no one home. The way he knew that no one was home was the fact that the lamp was not on, and it was always on when his mother came home. The whole house was dark; he could see that through the small dirty window that was the only one in the house. He figured that his mother was probably working another one of her late nights for one of the many people that she worked for. Jack walked toward the door to open it and it creaked open as he did so. They had no locks on their doors since they couldn't afford to get a door that could accommodate one, but no one world ever break in, since there was nothing to take except an old lantern and a beat up wood chair with matching aged chairs.

He walked slowly inside the room and shut the door behind him. He couldn't see and he fumbled for the match that he knew was on the table. He located it quickly and struck it, the fire casting a ghostly light throughout the room. He lit the old lamp and the room was quickly filled with light. He surveyed the room to find it the same as he had left it in the morning. The room was a gray-like color with a small wooden table in the middle. In two of the corners of the room there was a bed of hay with a pillow and an old sheet that his mother had taken from one of her employers. The sheets were going to be thrown out, and his mother didn't believe in wasting anything. In the middle of the table was a loaf of bread and some cheese. He noticed that next to the food was a piece of parchment paper. Somehow his mother had found a piece to write on and he read the note.

Jack,

I'll probably be working late tonight. Eat some food.

-Mum

Jack sat and began to eat a piece of bread with some cheese. He had been eating quietly when he heard a knock from the door. He got up slowly from the table and looked out the window. His mother had told him to never open the door for anyone until he saw who it was that had come knocking. He looked up the dusty window and saw that it was Mr. Foster, the head servant that kept all the other servants in line. He really didn't serve anyone, he merely told the other servants what to do and took credit for their efficiency but none of their credit for their occasional inefficient moments.

He opened the door wondering what the man could possibly want with him since his mother was at the home of his employer working. The man looked at him with a questioning look as if he wasn't sure he was at the right house. The man spoke coldly:

"Jack Sparrow, I presume?"

"Yes sir."

"Did you come to see my mum?"

The figure stiffened.

"No."

"Can you tell me where she is"?

"Boy, your mother is dying. She has taken ill and she collapsed shortly the servants had their lunch."

You can probably see some of the parallels between Jack and Will Turner. That really wasn't what I was going for, but it works. Also I couldn't decided to have Jack's mom die right away and leave a note to Jack, or have him see her one last time. I think it will work better this way.

Please R&R

Bye!