Title: Kinship
Author: Dala
Pairing: none; gen (Jack/Bootstrap only if you squint really hard)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Pirates and their environs belong to the Mouse
Notes: AU; a what-might-have-been eight years prior to the movie

Will had fallen asleep in front of the dying fire when he was awakened by the banging of the door. He shivered under his thin jacket for a moment, steeling himself against the gusting March wind before he had to get up to shut the blasted thing. It was always blowing open. Mother had sworn she'd get someone in to fix it before the winter ended –

He rose on stiff legs, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes once again. The new tenant would have to take care of the door.

But the banging had stopped.

Will looked up and felt his throat tighten in panic. There was a man inside the flat, crouched to examine the bottom of the door jamb.

He had an iron poker at his feet, but before he could make his frozen limbs move the intruder had stood up, weaving unsteadily and nearly taking a tumble. He came closer, stumbling a bit, the faint light of the fire gilding his tanned face. Matted black hair, strewn here and there with little shining trinkets. Unkempt mustache and beard beneath a straight nose, tamed by an angled chin. His eyes were as dark as a starless night, smudged with what looked like tar and reddened in the whites. Even before he was close enough for the stink of alcohol to waft up Will's nostrils, he recognized the fuzzy madness brought on by drink. His mother had often come home from the tavern where she worked smelling like that, and that sort of man had sometimes come by the house to bang drunkenly on the door. That was how it had gotten broken in the first place.

Still too frightened to run, he stood trembling as the man approached him, mincing like the whores he'd always been told to avoid. The man was close enough to smell now, a rank scent as though he hadn't bathed in a good long time coupled with the acid smell of liquor. And something else, something hinted at beneath them both – salt?

Yes, Will realized, the salt of the sea – he smelled like a sailor, or at least he would have if he hadn't been so filthy and so drunk. It was as familiar a scent to Will as the soot-and-ash scent of the little room he was going to be thrown out of in a few hours; it was the smell of the father he dimly remembered. The clothes, tattered rags held together by vest and sash, and the cutlass at his hip confirmed it, but the smell was really the important thing. And the gold in his hair, in his teeth – if that didn't mark him as a pirate, Will didn't know what could.

The man squinted at him. "Are you th' whelp, then?" His voice was light and smooth, not the deep boom Will had been expecting. Of course, after a second glance the man wasn't very big at all, not nearly as menacing as he seemed to a boy small for his age.

"You – you can't be in here," Will stammered, ashamed to hear his voice come out as a squeak. "My f-father will be home any minute."

Something shadowy flickered in the pirate's unfocused eyes and he laughed, the sort of sharp, unkind laughter Will sometimes got from the rich men coming down to Cheapside for the shadier of their business deals. "Bold little thing, ain't you. We both know he won't be comin' back, not for either of us – not ever."

Will's heart sank a little. He'd been nursing a private hope that his father might come to get him – that he'd somehow heard about his mother's death and he would duck through the broken door to take Will away. To the sea, perhaps – as long as he was with his father, that would be all right. Even as the hours ticked away, even though it had been four years since he'd last set eyes on the man for whom he'd been named, Will clung to this idea. And now here was this strange man, and though there was no reason to believe him, he spoke with such conviction that the boy wanted, against his own will, to take his word.

The pirate suddenly took him by the shoulders, his grip tight enough to make Will wince. He was turned this way and that, intent dark eyes studying him. "You look like him, no doubt abou' that – 'cept for your eyes. They must've been hers."

"Let me go," Will whispered, knowing that there was no one in the building who would help him if he screamed. "We haven't much here, but take what you want, only let me –"

"Your father'll be home soon, will he," the pirate muttered, shaking Will slightly. There was deep fury in his black eyes. "D'you know your father, boy? Know what Bill Turner does in all this time he's gone?"

"He's a merchant –" Will began doggedly, the same speech he gave to the children who laughed and said he had no father.

"Spends his time on stealing and pillaging, that's what!" the pirate shouted as if he hadn't spoken. "Betrayin' his friends, leaving a half-starved son behind –"

At this Will finally found the strength to wrench away from the pirate's hold. "You're lying," he said firmly, backing away.

The pirate advanced on him again, head shaking wildly. "I knew him, better'n you ever will. I knew what he was – worst kind of pirate they got."

"He isn't!" Will burst out, wrapping his arms around himself. "You're the pirate, and you lie! My father is a good man –"

"Your ma tell you that?" the pirate snarled, leaning down so that Will caught the stench of his breath again. "They're both lying swindlers then."

Will stared at him for a moment, his hands shaking with anger. Without warning, he slumped to the floor, his eyes flooding again. Beyond caring about being attacked, he hugged his knees to his chest and wept.

He heard the shifting of fabric as the pirate moved. "Lad?" Another pause, filled only by the sounds of his own sobbing. The pirate spoke again, hesitantly, sounding infinitely more sober. "It's – it's William, am I right?"

Will glanced up, sucking in a breath. "Will," he gasped.

The man's eyes were softer now, his hands looser at his sides. "Will, then." He knelt carefully next to the boy, who buried his face in the rough, patched breeches over his knees. "I didn't mean it, what I said about your da. He's – he was a friend o' mine." A hand patted him awkwardly on the back as his tears began to slow.

"Where is he?" Will whispered, hearing the desperate longing in his voice.

The man settled down more comfortably beside him, staring into the embers. "Don't know."

Will glanced at him sideways. His head was bent and he seemed to have aged ten years in a day, the way some of the women at the tavern did. It was difficult to be afraid of him when he looked so much like he was hurting.

"Is your mother dead?" the man asked, looking at him when Will could only nod. He swallowed hard, shifting uncomfortably. "'M sorry 'bout that. And about me too. I shouldn't have..." He paused, a grin twisting his face. It would have been the nice infectious sort, if it been any less bitter. "Lotsa things I shouldn't've done."

Will said nothing, only continued to look at him.

The man held out a grimy hand. "Name's C –" He paused, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. "Jack Sparrow."

Wondering what he had been about to say, Will took his hand warily. Jack's grip was firmer than his waving arms would indicate, his skin reassuringly warm in the damp chill of the flat. When Jack released him, Will wiped his face with his sleeve, succeeding only in smearing the tears across his skin.

Jack cocked his head as he looked at him. "What'll you do now, Will?"

Will lifted his shoulders in a shrug, liking the way Jack spoke to him without a hint of condescension. He was only twelve, but with his mother gone and his father absent, he felt the burdens of a man fully grown. "I can't stay here. I'm supposed to be out by dawn."

"No relatives to take you in? No fam'ly friends?" Will shook his head. He had swallowed his pride and asked. Mrs. Swinden down the street, his mother's closet friend, had too many mouths of her own to feed. And the landlord, Mr. Phipps, had already shown him kindness by allowing him to stay for free in the room until he'd rented it out to the young family moving in tomorrow.

Or today, he amended, seeing the streaks of a paler blue through the window. He shivered, this time not from the cold.

Jack looked away from him, following his gaze to the window and the beginnings of sunrise. He twisted his hands in the his lap, a nervous gesture Will thought he remembered from his father.

"I've got a boat," said Jack haltingly. "Measly little thing, but I could use another hand onboard." He looked sharply at Will, his brows drawing together. "It would be hard work, mind. I've no interest in charity."

"I can work," said Will, considering it. The man was a pirate, after all, and he'd broken into Will's home to threaten him. Will would be a fool to trust him. Yet what other options did he have? Like it or not, he would very shortly be homeless, a street urchin scrambling for scraps and begging for an odd job or two. And for whatever reason, despite the circumstances of their meeting, he did trust Jack, at least far enough to believe he meant no harm.

"Well, Mr. Turner," said Jack with a roguish grin, standing and reaching down to Will, "do we have an accord?"

Will took the offered hand and let Jack draw him to his feet.

"You have been to the docks before, haven't you?"

Will trotted alongside him, giant eyes taking in everything they passed. "Not in a long time." He stopped to stare at a little girl with brown curls twirling a parasol. Jack eyed her father's fat purse, but they were escorted by competant-looking uniforms, so he tugged on Will's hand. The scant coin Will had brought along and the money from the fine golden necklace he'd managed to snatch earlier ought to be enough for the moment.

He gave the distracted boy a quick lesson in casting off, knowing that none of it would stick. They stood together at the helm, Will glancing back to watch the harbor recede into the distance. For a moment Jack wondered if he'd made a grave mistake.

Then Will looked out to sea, a smile spreading slowing across his thin face, and Jack was calmed. He was Bootstrap's child after all.

"Where will we go?" Will wanted to know, friendly but still cautious, as though he expected Jack to change his mind and throw him overboard.

"A little port in Spain I know," said Jack. "Easier to get passage to the Caribbee there."

"The Caribbean?" The boy's eyes lit up. "Really?"

Jack chuckled at the eagerness of youth even in the face of fear and grief. "You'll like it, I wager. It's much warmer than this rock," he said, remembering how the boy had shivered in his pathetic little room.

Will's smile vied with the sun for its brightness before he let his gaze wander to the horizon once more. He patted his jacket pocket solicitously and Jack thought about asking him what it contained, but dismissed the notion. Probably a memento of his mother, and it would do no harm to let him keep his secrets. Jack had dim memories of how important they had been when he was Will's age.

He breathed the salt air deeply, aware of Will's fresh delight beside him. The boy would be seasick soon enough and he'd probably cry himself to sleep tonight, but for now he reveled in the waves, the wind, the deck warm beneath his feet. As it should be, Jack thought, for himself and for Bill's son at his side.