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Hello, there! Welcome to 'Baby Grace'. This is the first fan fiction I have ever published, and I hope times a million that everyone, if anyone, likes it. Please let me know if you do, all reviews from all people are two hundred percent wonderful! Summary: Jack Sparrow returns to Tortuga after a while, only to, to his dismay, discover that he has previously impregnated a wench who died during childbirth. So now dear ol' Jack is stuck with the little squirt. But, it's funny. So, who's complaining? :) Disclaimer:  Little Grace is mine, but everybody else is owned by someone other than me, namely Disney and such, so I'd appreciate it to a great extent if you didn't sue me. Thanks again. Chapter One: Dead Tortuga Wench

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I've never known responsibility, and I've never known me own father. So, when I found out that I was a father myself, I didn't quite know where to turn. No one on me crew is a father, can't ask them for tips. Can't ask the damn baby for help, unless you can translate coos and slobbery gurgles into English.

Grace...that's what her mother called her, God rest her soul. Never liked the name did I. To me, it sounds like one of those names that should belong to one of those stupid, stuck up noblewomen who wear fancy frilly dresses and corsets that make them look like sick little girls, if you ask me. I had no say in naming the child, seeing as I was God-knows where when she was born.

Truthfully, Grace was a bit of an...accident, if you know what I mean. Giselle, her mother, was just another Tortuga wench who decided to keep me entertained one fine evening. The next day, I set sail, never to think about dear Giselle again...

Well, until my return to Tortuga, that is.

I had just gotten my beloved Pearl back, (And that, my friend, is another story entirely) and I was honestly in extraordinarily fine spirits as my crew docked the ship and we set out for a night of women and rum; in my opinion, the two most exquisite pleasures in the Caribbean.

Now me, being the kind and charming gentlemen that I am, decided to rekindle old times with Giselle, my favorite wench, of whom I had grown quite fond of my past few times in Tortuga, if you know what I mean.

Giselle "worked" in a dark tavern on the southern side of Tortuga. I never, to this day, caught the name of the place. Usually, it's either too dark or I'm too drunk to read the sign naming the bar. So really, what's the point? Anyway, I made my way, slowly, but surely to this nameless tavern; slowly because of the many obstacles that lay in my path, namely pirates who had drunken their weight in rum and had the substance nearly spilling out their ears.

Though not knowing its name, I instinctively knew the tavern's location, having been there so many times, and I let my feet lead me on in there like I owned the bloody place.

The site was in a typical, normal, Tortuga bar state, complete with unconscious men, loud gunshots, kegs flowing with rum, and waitresses never bothering to plug the barrel from which the rum flowed, because as soon as she left, another would come stumbling over, waving his empty mug drunkenly, demanding with a grunt a refill. The man working behind the bar counter looked sober; well, soberer than anyone else in the tavern, so I decided to have a go at communicating with him. I waltzed on up to him, and upon ordering a rum, began to ask questions.

"Seen Giselle around?" I asked casually as I took a grand swig of my rum, looking around.

The man frowned gravely, as if he wanted nothing more than to break my neck and feed me to his dogs; I frowned back, having quite a time trying to figure out this chap. I took his expression as a no, and broke his gaze to stare into my large mug of overflowing brown luscious liquid. I tell you, there's no drink in the world that could make me as happy as that of rum. It's the fruit of the Caribbean.

Honestly, if it weren't for me rum, I really don't know what I'd do. I suppose I could take up brandy?

Ok, that was a bad lie...I hate brandy.

Anyhow, I finished my rum and flipped the angry man a shilling, before hopping off the barstool and looking around for familiar faces.

Astonishingly, I spotted one.

It was Scarlet...another wench; and a friend, if you could even call it that, of Giselle's. I raised an eyebrow and skipped over to the lass, but she looked at me in the same manner as did the man at the bar. I tell you, Tortuga people seem to get unfriendlier every time I pay them a visit.

"Scarlet!"

I tensed my face muscles, if that is even possible, and prepared for a smack across the face, as was the custom for some number of wenches in Tortuga; raging tempers, some women had. I mean, honestly, why shake hands when you can express your love with a good righteous slap?

But, to my dismay, Scarlet wasn't feeling the love that evening, and the slap was forgotten and replaced by a sharp nod and a squint of an eye.

"Jack Sparrow." She acknowledged me. "Haven't seen ye around these parts in a while."

I tried counting the months since I had paid me beloved Tortuga a visit, but I felt my eyes cross as I made the effort. I had no idea what month it was, let alone how long it'd been since my last trip to Tortuga.

You'd think with all the money we pilfer annually from our treasure finds, we'd have enough to invest in a calendar...

I guessed it'd been about ten months, maybe a year...and I told Scarlet this.

"Aye, I guess it's been about ten months, maybe a year..." said I, as I watched her wipe her fiery red hair out of her eyes.

There's somethin' about those redheads, eh?

"Seen Giselle any place?" I asked, but Scarlet only looked at me evilly again. I remember thinking, what does a man have to do to get a bloody question answered around here?

"What?" I asked when I saw that neither her eyes nor her body had moved since I had asked the question. "What?"  I pressed when I still got no reaction.

"Giselle's dead, Jack."

Now, I may be a pirate, but unlike some pirates that I know, I am not a heartless fool, and I remember feeling a strange feeling of guilt punch me in the stomach when my mind settled on the word 'dead'.

"Dead? Whaddya mean dead?" I knew very well what she meant, I'm no idiot or anything, but I wasn't quite sure I had heard the dame correctly, or that she was entirely sober.

"Dead," Scarlet accented, "Deceased, gone! Died giving birth to yer child." She added the last bit with a cock of her head, then turned on her heel and walked away, leaving poor old Jack in the dust, and very confused, might I add.

I can assure you that my eyes have never stretched farther open before than they had at that particular moment. I tell you this because they were almost sore when I finally blinked, to my eyeballs' relief, and took my gaze off the door Scarlet had stormed into. I peered down into my rum glass and swished its contents around thoughtfully, wondering if I had had a bit much. When I realized that I was not yet, in fact, intoxicated, I closed my eyes in an attempt to calm down. I then remember cursing slightly under my breath as angry thoughts went through my head.

This is just bloody GREAT.

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Oh dear, poor Jack. I can tell you that I am already well into the next chapter, so those of you who might maybe want to continue reading this can be expecting an update sometime in the next day or two. I hope you like this one; it's my baby!

Smile!

-Aurelie Belle