(A/N: My first planned series, and my first Pirates fic! This is basically all the Sparrabethy moments from their points of view - which sounds really boring, but I'm trying to make so it's not!)

The Day They Always Remembered
Their first meeting, from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, when Elizabeth falls in the water and Jack rescued her.

"And then they made me their chief."

Jack had barely finished his story about the Pelagostos cannibal tribe, when a huge splash on his starboard side made him turn quickly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw…a dress? A dress had fallen into the water. No, wait, he mentally corrected himself. A dress and its occupier had fallen into the water.

He glanced up quickly, and saw several men in red staring down in horror at the foaming white spot on the otherwise-calm blue waters. It took him less than a second to figure out what had happened.

"Will you be saving her, then?" Jack doubtfully asked one of the guards. It didn't surprise Jack at all when he replied that he couldn't swim. Jack glanced momentarily at the other guard – he looked too confused at what was happening to even save his own self from drowning, let alone a lady.

"Pride of the King's Navy, you are," Jack contemptuously remarked, stuffing his effects into one of their hands. "Do not lose these," he ordered, thinking it would be enough of a challenge for them to follow that instruction. And with a beautiful (even if he did think so himself) clean dive, he plunged into the cool deep waters.

A ripple went through the water as he entered, but Jack scarcely paid any attention to it. The lady had sunk clear down to the floor, and as he tried to tug her back to the surface, he realized why. The overly fancy dress itself seemed to weigh twice as much as the lady, and it was all Jack could do to reach the surface himself and take a breath.

He dove under again, and Jack quickly tore the dress away, letting it sink underwater. The girl was now much lighter, light enough for Jack to haul back to the ship and drag on board, with more hindrance than help from the two guards.

"Not breathing!" one flustered guard exclaimed, desperately patting at the girl's cheek before Jack pushed him aside. Spotting the tightly laced corset, Jack immediately realized why she couldn't breathe.

Women and their instruments of torture, he thought disgustedly to himself. He didn't have a high opinion of the fairer sex in general, and feeble ladies like these were eternally proving his point. With strong, swift strokes of his knife, he cut away the corset, and the girl immediately choked up all the water she had swallowed.

"Never would have thought of that," the guard remarked, his panic forgotten as his eyes busily examined the girl's semi-naked body.

"Clearly, you've never been to Singapore," Jack drily replied. Men like these guards, they never realized how much knowledge lay outside of the borders of England. Fortunate for this girl that a man like Jack was here. He watched the girl gasp in air, absently noting the tantalizing way her chest rapidly rose and fell, but was distracted by a flash of sunlight glinting off of gold. He spied a necklace hanging on the girl's neck - a necklace that looked eerily similar to one he had known in the past - and, fingering the locket disbelievingly, Jack realized it was the same necklace.

"Where did you get that?" he muttered to the semi-conscious girl. How had such a necklace, such a dangerous, powerful, pirate necklace, come into the possession of this young, well-bred damsel in distress?

Just then, the sound of a sword being unsheathed rang through the air, and Jack found a sharp point half an inch from his throat, promptly forgetting all about the gold disk.

…

Elizabeth couldn't breathe – something was squeezing out all the air from her lungs, and something else - heavy and cool, tasting of salt - was filling the space in its stead. She tried to open her eyes, and couldn't. She was dying. There was no doubt. She could almost feel the life draining out of herself.

Suddenly, a dull, ripping sound came to her ears, as if from far away, and the huge pressure on her lungs was gone. Elizabeth gasped thankfully for air, more air, sweet air, and blearily parted her eyelids a bit.

She found a swarthy, sun-tanned face staring down at her, surrounded by dark braids of hair, a face that could only belong to a pirate. And suddenly she was wide awake.

Blades sprang out of thin air, and came to a stop inches from the pirate's throat. As the pounding in her head subsided, Elizabeth recognized James Norrington's voice barking out a command. Suddenly her anxious father hurried up, and promptly wrapped her in his coat. It was only then she realized she was partly-naked, and pulled the coat tight around herself.

"Shoot him!" her father ordered furiously, and Elizabeth realized, with a little embarrassment, what it looked like to him.

"Father!" she protested immediately, shocked at her usually mild-mannered father displaying such bloodthirsty desires. "Commodore," she turned to him pleadingly. "Do you really intend to kill my rescuer?" Pirate or not, this man had saved her from drowning. And he hadn't done anything wrong this time. Surely that counted for something.

Jack was pleasantly surprised to see the girl stick around long enough to plead his case. If he had been offered a bet, he would have bet his last rum bottle that the girl, having been traumatized at the sight of him, would go wailing to her mother, hiding her face in shame from having been rescued by a pirate. Thank goodness he hadn't been offered a bet, because it looked like this damsel wasn't too fond of being in distress. His opinion of the girl rose a notch.

He wondered, rather insecurely, whether she had failed to recognize him as a pirate. Would a well-bred lady such as her be defending him if she knew he was a thieving scallywag of a pirate? He did look like a pirate, didn't he? But then, as the Commodore considered the girl's plea, Jack became a little too anxious about his fate to care much at the moment about his appearance.

The Commodore looked at the girl, and from his gaze, Jack instantly knew he was infatuated with the girl. And as he looked back at the girl, he knew she knew the fact, and was playing on it for all she was worth. As the swords drew back, he quickly made a little thank-you gesture towards her.

"I believe thanks are in order." The Commodore raised his arm towards Jack, waiting. Jack looked at the outstretched hand and immediately distrusted it. But he could see no other option but to take it, and was not at all surprised when the Commodore seized the opportunity to swiftly yank up Jack's sleeve, showing off the pirate brand on his arm to everyone.

So the man really was a pirate, Elizabeth realized. She looked at him with a mixture of fascination and horror, and - though she tried to stop herself from feeling it- a slight bit of respect. Oh, she knew how terrible and nasty and ill-mannered and filthy they were, but she held a grudging admiration for the way they could go where they wanted, do what they pleased, and never have to listen to anyone but themselves. It was a life she had often longed for when she was younger, but could never quite imagine herself living.

"Well, well! Jack Sparrow, isn't it?" the Commodore remarked as he uncovered Jack's signature tattoo.

"Captain Jack Sparrow, if you please," Jack somewhat audaciously corrected him. He hated it when people forgot the Captain in front of his name. After all, he did command the finest ship in the world…or, at least, he winced as he corrected himself mentally, he used to command the finest ship in the world.

"I don't see your ship…Captain," the Commodore reminded Jack, his lip curling unpleasantly, though his tone remained civil.

"I'm in the market, as it were," Jack grimaced back, matching his sickly-sweet politeness word for word.

"He said he'd come to commandeer one," the quieter of the two guards spoke up. Jack imagined strangling him and feeding him to the sharks with a wistful longing. Too bad so many men were around.

"Told you he was telling the truth! These are his, sir!" the other guard chimed in, and handed over Jack's effects, right under his very nose.

And the Commodore began to examine and criticize Jack's stuff – all of which, to his mind, was worth more than the Commodore and those two guards put together. The Commodore remarked disgustedly, at the end, "You are without doubt the worst pirate I have ever heard of!"

Jack raised two fingers, a look of quiet triumph upon his face. "But you have heard of me," he pointed out boldly. Small baby steps were always the safest path towards fame...or infamy, as the case may be.

At long last, Jack's saucy attitude snapped the Commodore's patience, and he grabbed Jack by the shoulder, hauling him along unceremoniously.

"Commodore, I really must protest!" Elizabeth followed after them, trying to get her point across. She had been silent during their exchange, trying to fully absorb the absurdity of her situation. "Pirate or not, this man saved my life!" Didn't that count for anything? Was her life really that worthless in their eyes?

"One good deed is not enough to redeem a man of a lifetime of wickedness!" James Norrington met her gaze squarely and stubbornly.

"But it seems enough to condemn him," the pirate remarked drily, amused at the irony. Elizabeth shot him a 'keep-quiet' glare, and turned back to the Commodore, trying to figure out a way to reason with him.

Jack, meanwhile, had a plan forming in his head as an extremely inept officer chained his hands together. After all, he was Captain Jack Sparrow. He did not stand idly by waiting to be freed by a woman's whines and pleas. "Finally," he sighed, as the man finished, and, quick as lightning, Jack threw the chain around the girl's neck. Yes, this girl was going to help him escape, but not quite in the way she would have preferred.

Elizabeth gasped in shock at the feel of the chain against her neck, and the warmth of the pirate's hands against her shoulders. He wasn't pulling the chain tight, but indignation swept over her like a tsunami as she realized how diabolical this man's plan was. Here she was, trying to save his life, and he was holding her hostage? Fury coursed through her veins, followed swiftly by shame, as she realized it was the second time that day that her life lay in a pirate's hands. Elizabeth hated being so helpless about her own fate.

"I knew you'd warm up to me," the pirate muttered, his warm breath tickling her ear, and then louder, he addressed the rest of the shocked audience. "Commodore Norrington, my effects, please!" Strange, how even that polite little phrase rang with authority coming from Captain Jack Sparrow's mouth. "And my hat," he added hastily.

The Commodore stood there, torn between two decisions, two loves. Jack almost felt a moment of pity for him, but not enough to let go. "Commodore!" Jack ordered again, a feeling of smug pity rising within him. This was why love was so useless.

Elizabeth watched as Norrington relented, and handed over the pirate's gadgets, slightly incredulous way the pirate was getting everything to go his way. "It's Elizabeth, isn't it?" the pirate's hot breath tickled her ear again.

"It's Miss Swann!" she proudly stated, not bothering to hide the disgust in her voice.

"Miss Swann, if you'd be so kind," Jack requested, making his tone a little more respectful, mildly impressed that the girl wasn't terrified at being held captive by a pirate. "Come, come, dear, we don't have all day."

The Commodore deposited Jack's effects into Elizabeth's hands, all except the gun, which Jack caught, and pointed at Elizabeth's head. Of course, he had no intention of shooting her – the bullet in the gun wasn't meant to take her life – but then, she had no way of knowing that.

"Now, if you'll be very kind," Jack asked Elizabeth again, quite politely, he thought. The girl was sharp, no mistaking that. She understood what he wanted her to do, and she did it, looking into his face all the time, a fierce, proud look in her eye, with only a hint of embarrassment tainting her expression.

Elizabeth had probably never done anything as shameful as dressing a pirate before in her life, but she didn't hesitate more than a second. She jammed the hat onto his head, glaring at him all the while, and wrapped her arm around his shoulders to get his coat on.

Jack easily pulled her close, to make her task easier, but also to see the look on the Commodore's face. It was too much like an embrace, to the distress of James Norrington, and secret pleasure of Jack Sparrow.

Looking at the girl's face, he found he could understand why the Commodore was so keen on this particular girl. She was quite pretty, and could be even prettier cleaned up, but besides that, there was a sort of sharp intelligence in her face, a sort of ruthlessness. Here was a girl, Jack felt, here was a girl who would do what she had to do to survive. A girl who could see a way from Point A to Point B, and would do it, no matter what the consequences. Pity she wasn't a pirate. They could have been good friends.

"Easy on the goods, darlin'," he whispered teasingly, as she tightened the belt around his waist.

"You're despicable," Elizabeth replied, quiet disgust in her voice.

Jack let the words bounce off his thick skin. "Sticks and stones, love," he murmured. "I saved your life, you saved mine, we're square."

At his words, Elizabeth gained a flash of understanding. When he put it like that, it did seem fair, now that she thought about it. This way, he escaped and she went unharmed. It was bewildering, for a second, to think a pirate was right. And then he spun her around and pointed the gun at her temple once more, and Elizabeth forgot any sympathetic thoughts involving Jack Sparrow.

"Gentlemen," Jack roared. "Milady," his low voice whispered near Elizabeth's ear, almost as though he was sharing some private thought or joke with her. In spite of his prejudice against most women, Jack couldn't help being intrigued by this one.

"You will always remember this as the day that you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow." And with that final declaration ringing in the air, in a smooth, fluid motion, Jack pushed Elizabeth towards the advancing Commodore, and leaped on a rope to escape, managing to break a hole on the deck with a cannon as an added reminder of his visit. The crowd of young officers below watched him in amazement as he leaped away to safety.

Elizabeth herself watched with grudging awe at the retreating figure of Jack Sparrow, as she remembered all the legends and tales she had heard about Captain Jack. Had there ever been a situation he could not escape from?

But even Captain Jack Sparrow could be wrong on occasion, and this was one such occasion. It wasn't only the Navy of Port Royal who remembered the day forever. Both he and Elizabeth always remembered that day as their first encounter with each other - an encounter that would irreversibly change both their lives forever.

(A/N: So? Did you like it? Do you think I should continue the series? I was hoping I gave a good perspective of each character from the other's perspective. Jack finds Elizabeth very unexpected, as most of the fine ladies he has come across are weak, helpless, and airheaded. Elizabeth is fascinated by pirates, and is grudgingly admiring of the way Jack can weasel out of almost any situation. Please tell me whether you thought I did a good job, and whether you have a particular scene in mind you wish I would write about. I'm trying to do them in chronological order, though. If you've actually stuck around and read all this, please leave a review! They are the points of light in my otherwise dreary existence...)