The early hours of the morning were already starting to become humid, the still sleeping residents of the Caribbean town oblivious to the scorching day they would receive as they rested in their homes and to the silently moving ship with black sails leaving the bay.
Anne stood on the deck, looking back at her home of five years. Worries still nagged at her, had she done the right thing for Thomas? What if their time aboard the pearl turned out to be really awful?
Anne had decided on thing though, no matter how promising their journey would be, if Thomas did not wish to leave, then they wouldn't.
But predictably, as soon as Anne had mentioned living on the seas on the Pearl for a time, Thomas had been bouncing with excitement, not a fibre in his being wanted to stay behind.
Jack had left the mother and child only moments earlier so Anne could gather up all their few belongings for their journey.
It had taken no time to pack at all really; they had few clothes between them and even less possessions. Anne took a few items of her sewing equipment and Thomas, without any books or toys took little at all.
Now Anne stood, leaning against the railing of the Black Pearl, Thomas next to her as the town they had called home drifted out of view.
As Anne had set foot on the ship, only mere hours earlier, the silence that had welcomed them told her they were not all together an accepted addition to the crew as Jack had introduced them before showing them to their room and the looks she'd received were none too gracious.
At first, Anne had been worried that they would be sharing with the crew and as she stared at the mass of dirty male bodies around her she was dearly considering the entire decision to be of dire consequences. But instead Jack had led them to his cabin and to a small room adjoining the captain's cabin. The room was plain and even smaller than their room above the dressmakers shop, but Anne couldn't have asked for anything more. After all, they were getting free passage aboard a ship that would surely sail them to a better life.
Anne turned to Thomas next to her, who was looking around at glee at the crew working away and straining against his mother's hand to get a better look.
"Now Thomas," Anne scolded, "I don't want you disturbing the crew when we've been so graciously allowed on board."
Thomas nodded hastily.
"Can I go explore Ma?" he asked eagerly, looking ready to pop with excitement.
"Just as long as you keep out of they way and don't get into trouble," Anne said and laughed when her son dashed away like a cork from a newly opened bottle.
As the crew bustled around her Anne realised with a start that she didn't even know where they were headed! She hadn't even given another thought to her and Thomas' future!
Far to frightened by the rugged appearance of the crew to ask their direction, Anne chose to find Jack to ask him where they were going as she was much more comfortable with his company than the strangers surrounding her.
Hoping that Thomas had the sense to stay out of any danger, Anne ventured off to where she saw the captain disappear into earlier.
Anne raised her knuckles to knock at the captain's cabin, but paused when she heard she was being spoken about.
"Ye brought a woman aboard Jack! Have ye no sense at all?" a gruff voice asked astounded.
Anne frowned, hearing this person speaking ill of her to Jack. She ducked out of the way of the window to the deck floor, underneath the stairs leading to the stern where she could see the pair sitting at the large table in Jack's cabin. Jack looked calm as he was leaning back in his chair with his feet kicked up onto the table. The other man, who Anne did not know, was older than Jack with greying hair and a bristly beard. He looked angry as his fists clenched on the table in front of him.
"We've always said women are bad luck on a ship!" continued the older man, banging his fists on the table.
However, Jack fiddled with the cuffs of the jacket Anne had sewn and appeared to be taking very little notice of the accusing man before him.
'Nay Gibbs, ye have always said that, not me," Jack replied, still not meeting the eyes of the man named Gibbs before him. "An' anyway, I'm de captain, if I choose te bring a girl on de ship, then I will!"
"But Jack, you bought her child aboard too! I'll not be having them get in the way of us! And what about when we get to the pillaging? What are ye gonna tell her then?"
Jack smiled, rocking back in forth in his chair lazily.
"She surely knows what pirates do! And Mister Gibbs, why do you assume that will be our purpose on this adventure? We're heading for treasure!"
Gibbs leaned back in his chair, a sceptical look across his face.
"Captain, the crew and I are getting a little restless; surely it's time for a little honest pirating? Not chasing after a treasure that may or may not exist?"
Jack smiled again, finally meeting the eyes of the man before him. He stoked his platted and beaded beard as if he knew something Gibbs did not know.
"But 'tis a true treasure, of great riches!"
Gibbs sighed audibly. But Jack kicked his legs off the table to lean in close to Gibbs.
"As for de girl, I'm just 'elping her get a new start on life, an' she's as honest as ye mum, nay get in the way she will."
Anne smiled to herself from her position under the stairs. Jack was defending her! Deep down inside her she got the familiar flighting feeling in her stomach that was apparent whenever Jack was around.
"Jack," started Gibbs, his voice softer now, "I know ye, ye've bought 'undreds of women aboard the Pearl before and each time dropped them off quickly at the next port 'cause ye bore of them."
Jack pouted childishly, as if he didn't agree with Gibbs' opinion, but didn't voice his protest.
Anne furrowed her brow. Hundreds of women? What kind of person was he? She had been beginning to think that Jack was perhaps not the womanising drunkard she had previously heard and even started to give everything up as rumours, but this recent evidence and the array of bottles littering Jack's cabin was a defence against Anne's gentler thoughts.
"What makes ye think this girl is any different?" Gibbs asked and Anne strained to hear Jack's answer, surprising herself by hoping to hear him say that he felt different towards her, but didn't hear the answer as she was suddenly gripped hard by the arm and hauled to her feet.
"What ye be doing missy?" said Anne's captor and angry glint in his eyes. Anne stared in fear at the dark skinned man painfully gripping her arm. He was not a pleasant sight, with crooked yellowing teeth and dreadlocks, if possible, even more scraggily and dirtier than Jack's.
"Captain!" called the crew member through Jack's cabin door, "We've got a lass 'ere dat doesn't know her place!"
Anne struggled, but the grip on her arm was far too tight, she could not get away and would have to face Jack while he knew she had been eavesdropping on his conversation.
What would he do? Would Jack move her and Thomas' sleeping quarters to join the crew? Or even worse, throw her overboard?
Jack's door swung open, Gibbs trailing after Jack and turning to look at Anne with a look of anger flaming away in his eyes.
To Anne surprise, Jack grinned in Anne's direction, looking amused rather than angry.
"I told ye Jack! Gibbs protested, "Women are no luck aboard a ship! She has no respect for de crew listening in like that!"
"I suppose I just didn't like being spoken ill of behind my back," Anne replied coldly, delighted to see a deep red flush creep up Gibb's cheeks.
"Doesn't matter," Gibbs replied "Ye shouldn't 'ave been listening in to business that isn't ye own!"
Anne crossed her arms angrily over her chest. Her eyes flicked to Jack to see where he stood for this argument. Jack was silent regarding her with an unreadable expression on his face.
Anne really felt quite pathetic in this situation; her anger was really a façade over her true emotion of fear. Although she really was fuming about being spoken about as if she was some kind of disease, she was most of all frightened that Jack would decide that Gibbs was right and throw her overboard even if she didn't deserve it, for women we in no way bad luck on a ship.
"Fine then!" Anne declared angrily, stamping her foot immaturely and trying to wrestle her arm away from the fearsome pirate but to no avail, "Next port we come to, Thomas and I will leave your silly ship and be out of your way!"
Jack's eyes bulged, seemingly in disbelief or perhaps just that Anne had called his beloved Pearl a 'silly ship' and he stood properly, no longer leaning on the door frame of his cabin.
"You can let 'er go, Koehler," Jack said sternly and the dreadful pirate named Koehler did so, with a look of disappointment that he had been denied his fun. He wandered off to his duties with his head hung low.
"No need to be so hasty now, love," Jack said as Anne stood angrily before him, rubbing her arm where she had been gripped so as to point out to Jack how unfairly she had been treated.
Gibbs looked over at Jack with an astonished expression, missed by both Anne and Jack. Was Jack actually trying to keep the girl from leaving? What did he care? Gibbs regarded Jack closely. When Jack had first mentioned he was going nightly to see a woman, Gibbs had wondered if Jack's had fallen for her, as by no means had he been this attentive to any other woman, but now as he was actually worries that she wanted to leave there was little doubt in Gibb's mind that Jack was in love with Anne.
Perhaps Anne's judgment had been wrong after all, and this was no the place for she and Thomas. She clearly wasn't very welcome on the ship by the crew and by no means wanted to be treated with such brutality again.
Anne pushed past both Gibbs and Jack, surprising the two with her abrupt departure. She even more infuriated to hear Gibbs point out 'the curses of women' to Jack once again.
She veered to the left of Jack's cabin, stepping over empty rum bottles and scattered jewels to her tiny cabin and gave the door a measured slam behind her.
Jack started to follow Anne, unheeding Gibbs' warnings as he continued to protest about Anne's presence. But Jack couldn't have cared less about his first mate and best friend now as his head- and perhaps especially his heart-nagged at him to put this argument right.
Jack had never really been very polite and saw this as being no time to start and opened Anne's door without even knocking.
He walked into the doorway to see Anne sitting miserably on the small bed, and looking up startled when Jack blew in the room.
"Jack!" Anne cried, standing abruptly and marching across the room to the door "I hope you knock in the future! I might've been getting dressed!"
Jack opened his mouth to tell Anne that was exactly why he didn't knock, but was interrupted when Anne tried to slam the door on him once again.
But Jack put his booted foot in the door's way and blocked Anne's efforts.
Anne let out a frustrated sigh and flopped unceremoniously into a sitting position on the bed, forgetting all formality as Jack obviously had, walking into a woman's bedroom.
"Now love," Jack began, his voice teasing, "is it jus' Gibbs' objections to ye being here that ye want to leave the honorable Captain Jack Sparrow's ship, or 'tis it something else?"
Against all anger, Anne found herself smiling at Jack. But the smile quickly disappeared and Anne sighed.
"No Jack, it's not all Gibbs," she said softly "I didn't think this through enough, Thomas and I can't really stay out on the seas forever, thank-you for taking us from that place, but we really need to find a new home."
Jack however, objected to this entirely, and Anne found herself surprisingly pleased.
"Why can't ye live 'ere? I called the Pearl my home for years!"
"I know that it possible to live here," Anne began, realizing that Jack wanted her to live in his 'home', "but you did mention Thomas' education, and I need to find him a school."
"Nay!" Jack declared triumphantly, as if he'd discovered new land "I can teach the tyke meself!"
Anne looked skeptically at Jack, considering what education a pirate could possibly have to teach another.
Jack frowned in fake, playful offense but flopped down next to Anne. Anne was surprised by him, there was a man sitting on her bed in her bedroom! Feeling her cheeks go red, she quickly looked away from him.
Anne however, did not look away quick enough and Jack caught a glimpse of her burning red cheeks. Jack realized that he sitting so close to her and on her bed was causing her to blush but made no effort to move.
"The trouble is love," he said lightly, as if asking her what her favourite food was, "that we're not heading back to land for months from now."
Anne's blush left her cheeks and she allowed herself to look down at the scrubbed wooden floor of the tiny cabin, but still did not meet the captain's eyes.
It looked as though they would be on the ship for a while then. Whilst Thomas would love this, Anne still worried about his education. Although Anne was sure Thomas was quite intelligent and would be able to pick up any knowledge quickly, she still worried that he was already late in starting. Anne had not been to school herself, as her family was quite poor and only the very wealthy young girls were able to learn, and even then they were not taught mathematics or science, but calligraphy and sewing and perhaps how to play the piano, none of which would be of any assistance to Thomas' future.
Although Anne had been taught to read and had also taught this ability to her son, she really thought Thomas would need more than just being able to read.
Jack had been studying Anne for some time, taking no shame in being able to look properly at Anne whilst she was deep in thought. He was a pirate wasn't he?
Anne was by no means large or overweight, but would have been considered voluptuous and a little rounded if she'd been able to eat properly for the past couple of years. Yet whilst most of the whores Jack had seen in Tortuga, the pirate town in the heart of the Caribbean were raggedly thin and boney, Jack felt that Anne's shape was quite perfect.
Her flyaway hair had been ruthless aboard the ship and Anne had not bothered to settle the mass down more carefully, or perhaps she hadn't noticed, Jack didn't have a mirror in this possession.
But most of all Jack loved Anne's deep brown eyes. They were everlasting brown and not dissimilar from Jack's own.
Secretly, Jack had been rather pleased that Anne had listened at his cabin door earlier, for it showed a side of Anne that Jack hadn't seen before, and certainly would have been something Jack would have done himself.
He liked the way Anne had stood up for herself; her nerve was quite appealing, as Jack didn't not believe in taking insults lying down.
Jack had not been relieved, but perhaps more comforted that Anne could throw a tantrum and put her own point across. Though Anne had little money, she had insisted on being rather proper and Jack had met many people whom associated being proper as being accompanied by snobbery, but Anne did not take this trait in her lifestyle.
Instead, the shy woman, who had been forced to grow up for quicker than most, did not think herself superior to any of the ruthless pirates she now was living amongst, although even her manners certainly exceeded theirs by far.
Jack had been attracted to many women before, and while nothing had really gone any further than attraction, Jack had never really hoped it would. He just simply did not think of such things when life could be lived on the seas looking for treasure!
But now looking at the woman beside him, Jack felt that this was one occasion where he did want to go further than attraction.
Feeling oddly nervous, but pushing away his fear with his distinct arrogance that he would always get what he wanted, Jack lifted Anne's chin to meet his eyes with hers.
"But mostly Annie," he said softly, barely audible had they not been mere inches apart, "I'd, really like ye to stay on board with me."
And with no further hesitation, Jack pushed their attraction further with the seal of his lips on hers.