-1A/N: I'm intending the chapters of this fic to bounce around different times in Jack and Elizabeth's lives together, kind of a series of very short one shots strung together. I'll try to keep the chaps around a the same time frame, but each will probably be a diff point in their lives. Eventually, it will make a whole, honest. :)

Part I

Mr. Gibbs

Those two, they was a pair from the very beginning. Maybe not always a love match, but a match just the same. Neither of 'em knew what the other was in for, the day she and that boy Will boarded our boat.

The crew noticed the first day of our voyage, an' maybe even the boy. That easy banter between those two, they was fightin' from the beginning. Little did any of us know, they'd be fightin' to the end.

Jack Sparrow

She walked into my life the same way she walks into anything else: no mercy, irresistible charm. I saw the pretty face but didn't catch the bite till later. I need a ship she said, sitting down next to me at the bar. A bit of a whelp tagged along with her; pretty boy an' muscles enough, but even at first glance the pair didn't seem right.

There was a fire in her eyes that drew me in, and instantly I wanted something of her. Didn't know what yet, just something.

I've got one I answered.

It's a dangerous mission.

All the better.

Cash in my hand and we were off to bigger water, off to find her precious whales. I didn't give a damn about the big brutes, but there was a certainty about the girl that told me we'd find trouble somewhere in the water. An adventure, a fight. There didn't seem much else to me worth living for.

Elizabeth

I didn't like the man much in the beginning, and it waxed and waned as our time together went on. He was tall, handsome, with a pair of dark eyes that seemed to bore right through me. Braids and trinkets wound in his dreadlocks, he looked like a pirate with that red bandana he never seemed to go without. Probably not trustworthy at all. He seems like a ruffian Will had whispered in my ear, shortly after we made the deal for the boat and crew. I agreed, and he was exactly what we needed.

Time would prove me right, perhaps to Will's chagrin.

A bit of an odd match for you, Jack had said with that pirate grin, leaning up against the railing, glancing at Will across ship. I noticed a tattoo on his forearm, a sparrow flying into the horizon. Fitting.

Perhaps I'd agreed. But Will had been there from nearly the very beginning of my life, maybe he would be there until the end. My indifference to the matter unnerved me a bit, before the feeling sank back down to the depths of my heart. But he takes good pictures.

You really willing to risk your life for this, love? Somewhere along the voyage, I'd earned this little nickname with him. I would be damned to admit I liked it; he infuriated me. The way he called me love, the way he looked at me, the way that mouth curled in a smirk as though he already knew all the little thoughts I kept locked away in my head.

I liked it.

Jack Sparrow

There was a certain sangfroid in her tone that chilled and impressed me. They'll be shootin' harpoons right over your pretty head I warned her. She didn't seem to care.

Life's too painful to live it for long, she explained. I'd rather live a short, free life, than a long one controlled by them.

Ah yes, them. They were everyone and no one. That force of people and laws that seemed to wiggle their way into any crevice of one's life if they could. With a new respect, I studied her as I had for the umpteenth time this voyage. The girl had a timeless beauty, an indomitable soul. I would keep that moment forever in my mind; the sea breeze whipping her sun bleached hair wildly around her, her jaw set with resolve and her eyes on the horizon. There was a certain familiarity to her I found hard to ignore. Impossible, I know.

You know we were born in a wrong age, love. We were meant to be pirates.

Her lips curled in a bewitching smile.

Yes, we were.

Will Turner

We had the determination and her father's money; what was to stop us from going? I would admit it; she'd always been the leader. The orchestrator, the planner. She always took us to such interesting places, I'd never had a problem following before, camera in hand.

We had a system. It was perfect. We were a team. She was the activist, I was the recorder. We sent the pictures to the media, spread the word all over the world of what they were doing to the planet.

She hated them with a passion. Every damn one of them. Nothing spoils life like a good government, she'd say. The expression on her lovely face scared me sometimes, when she spoke of how they quelled freedom at every chance.

Apparently, he felt the same.

I wanted to kill him when he volunteered.

You need to take pictures, Will she'd said. We need someone to drive the boat.

She turned those brown eyes up to him, suggestion without further words. Jack offered almost instantly. The man was curious about her, I could tell.

In a way, I couldn't blame him. Everyone seemed to want to know a little bit more about Elizabeth. That fiery woman who sometimes burned too bright for this world. I often had nightmares about the day that flame would burn itself out.

I'd never minded before, when the power of her soul threatened to burn me.