Disclaimer: Disney still needs Jack for the films, so he's not mine.
AN: I love Winter Break! Sleeping, eating, and all of the fan fiction I want! I also get to write more, too. And a big "thank you" to my reviewers and supporters! Enjoy the story!
Chapter 2: Explanations:
Silence filled the Turners' living room at the announcement. Lara had grown pale while Jack and Annamaria looked like they were ready to kill something. Meanwhile, Will and Elizabeth looked uncomfortable, while Julia just looked puzzled.
"Mama, who's Thomas Pierce?" the child asked her mother.
Her father snapped out of his own thoughts to answer her question. "Oh, treasure, no need to worry about that," Jack said, forcing a smile to reassure his daughter. "He's just a man your mama and I know."
Julia wasn't buying it. She got out of Elizabeth's lap and walked over to her parents, where Jack picked her up and placed her in his own lap. "But Mama looks scared, Papa," she said, looking between her mother's pale face and her father's angry one. "Is Thomas a bad man?" Her question was an innocent one, but it got her parents to ponder whether to tell her the truth or not. After all, the twins would also be in danger if Thomas was loose. After the two adult Sparrows exchanged a parental 'look,' the two decided to tell her daughter the truth.
"Thomas is a very sick man, Jewel," Lara replied quietly. "He thinks Mama is his wife, and that he is your father."
Julia looked up at her mother. "Will he try to hurt us, Mama?"
Lara looked down sadly at her daughter. "I don't know, sweetheart," she replied.
"What I want to know is how the bloody hell he got loose!" snapped Annamaria.
"Anna, that was uncalled for!" Lara exclaimed. "And there is a child present!"
Annamaria simply frowned in response. "Well, I still want to know!" she said.
"Aye, as do I," Jack said. Four pairs of eyes turned towards the Turners.
"Well," Elizabeth said, clasping her hands nervously. "You see, for the past several years, Thomas has been showing dramatic improvement in his behavior, and since the doctors could find nothing to keep him locked up for, they advised that he be set free."
Jack frowned. "And the Commodore and Governor bought that? Are they mad?"
Lara shook her head. "How could they be sure he was cured?" she asked her friends.
Will answered this time. "Apparently Thomas began to show little or no interest in finding you and the Black Pearl soon after you had left, Lara. The doctors believed that it was your turning up in Port Royal the first time that triggered his madness, and figured that, if you stayed away for a long amount of time, Thomas would snap out of it. It apparently worked. Three months ago, Thomas was released from his home and placed on a ship as a common sailor. They sailed out about two months ago for Europe and are due back in ten days."
"Then that's when we'll be leaving," Lara said sternly. "I won't risk my children being here when Thomas is!"
"We're not arguing with you, Lara," Elizabeth said, patting her friend on the hand.
"Good," Jack said, setting his daughter down on the floor. "Now we can have a nice visit and chat, what do ye say?" Everyone nodded. "Now, treasure, why don't ye go upstairs and play with Bill and Jay? I'm sure the Turners have plenty of toys up there." Julia's eyes widened with joy at the idea of new toys to play with; she quickly vanished upstairs while Jack and the adults talked about things non-Thomas related.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In the upstairs nursery, Bill Turner and Jack "Jay" Sparrow were having a fun time playing 'pirates.' They were pretending to swordfight when Julia came in and tried getting involved. The boys ignored her and continued their battles while Julia frowned at them. After ten minutes of being ignored, Julia picked up a wooden sword and attacked both Jack and Bill at the same time.
"Jewel, you're not supposed to fight!" Bill whined. "Girls don't fight!"
Julia lifted her head up proudly. "We do so fight!" she said. "Mama fights whenever we raid a port!" Jack nodded in agreement. Bill rolled his eyes in disbelief. "I'll prove it!" Julia stated. She swung her sword at him, Bill blocking her at the last moment. The two children then began to take the fight seriously. Bill had learned to fight from his father, while Jack and Julia had learned by watching their parents. Considering that both their fathers were superb swordsmen, it should have been a draw between Bill and Julia. However, that was not the case. Julia had a distinct advantage: her mother, as well as her foster 'uncles' and 'aunt' were also superb swordsmen (or women), and watching both parents, as well as the crew of the Pearl, practice fighting had taught her much. It wasn't long before Bill was on the floor with a triumphant Julia looking down at him, smirking.
"Told you so," she said. Bill simply looked at her in amazement before getting up and bowing. He then had both Sparrows tell him all about their lives aboard the Black Pearl.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was late that afternoon when the adults finally realized that it had grown too quiet upstairs, so Jack had decided to go and check on the children. When he opened the door, there lay three small children, each sound asleep on the floor, their tiny heads resting on stuffed animals. He picked up his two little ones and carried them downstairs, signaling to Will to do the same from the doorway of the living room. Elizabeth showed Jack the guest room he, Lara and the twins would be sharing, and it was there that he set his little Sparrows down for a nice, long rest.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The next ten days passed quickly for the two families. Annamaria had grown tired of wearing her 'nursemaid' outfit and had returned to the Pearl, where the rest of the crew was enjoying a (what they felt as) a well- deserved break from caring for the twins (they were pirates first and baby- sitters second, after all). The Turner and Sparrow families had spent a great deal of time catching up on the past five years, and the Sparrow children found a great amount of pleasure in having a playmate that wasn't at least twenty years their senior. Lara felt terrible about her children not having anyone to play with on the Pearl, but that was the way things were. She had tried suggesting leaving the children in Port Royal for a few years to be raised and educated, but Jack flatly refused the idea; he didn't want his son to come out like Thomas or, worse yet, Commodore Norrington! No, the Sparrow children would be just like their father, and that was that. The rest of their time was spent walking around town or dining with the Governor. Governor Swann had taken particular pleasure in buying gifts for the Sparrow children, primarily because Julia reminded him of Elizabeth at that age. But each child came out even, gift-wise, and had thanked the Governor profusely for his generosity.
Finally, however, it was time to go. All three children put up a tremendous fuss at separating from their new playmates, but Jack and Lara were determined to leave before Thomas returned to Port Royal. So, after many tears and promises to return after the twins' next birthday, Jack and Lara gathered their little ones and headed for the Black Pearl and the open seas.
Little did they know that the basis of their fears would not be returning to Port Royal anytime soon.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Three months later:
Thomas gritted his teeth as he sat in a run-down Spanish bar, one that catered to pirates and thieves. He still couldn't bear the idea of sitting on a stool next to a bunch of bloody pirates, but there was nowhere else to go. He had been kicked off his ship, The Gemstone, over four months ago in France for not listening to orders and daydreaming while on duty. He had managed to make his way here to Spain in hopes of getting home to Port Royal somehow, and had managed to get some work cleaning floors in several bars; now he was scrimping and saving to book passage back to the Caribbean. However, Thomas knew that it would take years to save enough money to get back home.
Growling at the thought, he took a drink from his mug and winced. This bar had to have the worst drinks in the world! Even the poorest tavern in Tortuga had managed to have better drinks! Oh, well, it was all he could get, so he downed the drink in a single gulp.
"Easy there, Tommy, ye need to stay sober to clean the floors tonight," joked Mr. Key, the bar's owner. "I can't have ye passing out while cleaning, now, can I?" Thomas just shook his head and asked for another, which was easily granted. Thomas knew that Key didn't mind his drinking, as long as the job got done.
As Thomas took another drink, he heard several pirates talking in the background, snapping to attention at the topic of conversation: The Black Pearl.
"Did ye hear? The Black Pearl will be coming around soon, do ye think their hiring?" asked one man. "I really need work, and Sparrow's supposed to pay well."
"Nah, you don't want to work on that ship unless ye like kids!" remarked another. "I heard that Sparrow's got himself a bonny wife and a set of twins onboard!" The other men around him stared. "I swear it's true! Sparrow's got his wife and twin children onboard, and only men who can get along with the kiddies can stay on."
Thomas felt his blood boil. Twins! Jack Sparrow had managed to get Lara to bear him twins! The thought was unbelievable. Thomas then shook himself out of his thoughts to listen to more of the conversation.
The other men shook their heads. "Don't know what's going on in Sparrow's head, but he's definitely got the best crew in the world working for him!" exclaimed the first man, lightly slamming his mug on the table. "I'll take the chance! It can't be that bad, can it, and Sparrow may be daft, but he's the best!" The man finished his drink, nodded to his friends and left. The other men turned towards each other.
"Well, I hope that Sparrow knows what he's doing," said one scruffy-looking man. "Having a woman onboard is bad luck!" The others nodded.
"It would be twice as bad for Gary over there," the scruffy man said, looking at a graying elderly man down the table from him. "Poor Gary saw Sparrow's lass once when they were here a couple years ago, and it scared him stupid. He said she looked just like a lady he knew over eleven years back. He'd been escorting some young noblewoman home from a trip to the Caribbean when she was washed overboard by a storm. Never did find out what happened to her, folks thought she'd drowned." The man took a drink from his mug. "Pity, the girl wasn't more than eighteen years old, and people said she was a lovely little thing, too. Her father was never the same after that, and neither was Gary. He felt responsible for her death." Thomas' eyes widened at the tale. It sounded familiar.
"What was the father's name?" asked another man.
"Is his name; he's still alive, though still tormented in spirit," came the response. "His name is Lord Holloway of Keens." The scruffy man took another drink. "Very wealthy man, he is. He still has a huge reward open to anyone who can tell him what happened to his daughter. Unfortunately, that person has to have proof of his report of whether she's dead or alive, and it's not like he'll see just anyone. Ye have to be of a certain social standing to see the Lord of Keens."
After that, the conversation turned towards gabbling, and Thomas turned his attention inwards towards his own thoughts. A vanished eighteen year old noblewoman who had disappeared during a storm at sea in the Caribbean over eleven years ago; Thomas did some calculating. There had been a vast amount of people who had washed up on beaches all over the Caribbean, but only one had done so eleven years ago, and who was a woman of about eighteen: that person was his beloved Lara.
Thomas smiled. If he managed to convince Lord Holloway that Lara was his daughter, he would be able to take her from Jack Sparrow, see the pirate hang along with his crew, and be able to marry a nobleman's daughter as a reward for rescuing her from pirates! Also, the Sparrow children would have a proper father to raise them and help them forget all about the pirate they once called 'father!'
Thomas chuckled as he downed his mug of ale, before turning his mind towards how on earth he would get enough money to look like he deserved to see Lord Holloway of Keens.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
AN: Oh, Thomas is a sneaky one, isn't he? Well, now you know what's going on in the mind of a love-sick maniac. Oh, and the next chapter will take a jump to about thirteen years into the future, with plenty of flashbacks to help explain things. Anyway, thanks for reading, and please leave a review! Thanks!
AN: I love Winter Break! Sleeping, eating, and all of the fan fiction I want! I also get to write more, too. And a big "thank you" to my reviewers and supporters! Enjoy the story!
Chapter 2: Explanations:
Silence filled the Turners' living room at the announcement. Lara had grown pale while Jack and Annamaria looked like they were ready to kill something. Meanwhile, Will and Elizabeth looked uncomfortable, while Julia just looked puzzled.
"Mama, who's Thomas Pierce?" the child asked her mother.
Her father snapped out of his own thoughts to answer her question. "Oh, treasure, no need to worry about that," Jack said, forcing a smile to reassure his daughter. "He's just a man your mama and I know."
Julia wasn't buying it. She got out of Elizabeth's lap and walked over to her parents, where Jack picked her up and placed her in his own lap. "But Mama looks scared, Papa," she said, looking between her mother's pale face and her father's angry one. "Is Thomas a bad man?" Her question was an innocent one, but it got her parents to ponder whether to tell her the truth or not. After all, the twins would also be in danger if Thomas was loose. After the two adult Sparrows exchanged a parental 'look,' the two decided to tell her daughter the truth.
"Thomas is a very sick man, Jewel," Lara replied quietly. "He thinks Mama is his wife, and that he is your father."
Julia looked up at her mother. "Will he try to hurt us, Mama?"
Lara looked down sadly at her daughter. "I don't know, sweetheart," she replied.
"What I want to know is how the bloody hell he got loose!" snapped Annamaria.
"Anna, that was uncalled for!" Lara exclaimed. "And there is a child present!"
Annamaria simply frowned in response. "Well, I still want to know!" she said.
"Aye, as do I," Jack said. Four pairs of eyes turned towards the Turners.
"Well," Elizabeth said, clasping her hands nervously. "You see, for the past several years, Thomas has been showing dramatic improvement in his behavior, and since the doctors could find nothing to keep him locked up for, they advised that he be set free."
Jack frowned. "And the Commodore and Governor bought that? Are they mad?"
Lara shook her head. "How could they be sure he was cured?" she asked her friends.
Will answered this time. "Apparently Thomas began to show little or no interest in finding you and the Black Pearl soon after you had left, Lara. The doctors believed that it was your turning up in Port Royal the first time that triggered his madness, and figured that, if you stayed away for a long amount of time, Thomas would snap out of it. It apparently worked. Three months ago, Thomas was released from his home and placed on a ship as a common sailor. They sailed out about two months ago for Europe and are due back in ten days."
"Then that's when we'll be leaving," Lara said sternly. "I won't risk my children being here when Thomas is!"
"We're not arguing with you, Lara," Elizabeth said, patting her friend on the hand.
"Good," Jack said, setting his daughter down on the floor. "Now we can have a nice visit and chat, what do ye say?" Everyone nodded. "Now, treasure, why don't ye go upstairs and play with Bill and Jay? I'm sure the Turners have plenty of toys up there." Julia's eyes widened with joy at the idea of new toys to play with; she quickly vanished upstairs while Jack and the adults talked about things non-Thomas related.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In the upstairs nursery, Bill Turner and Jack "Jay" Sparrow were having a fun time playing 'pirates.' They were pretending to swordfight when Julia came in and tried getting involved. The boys ignored her and continued their battles while Julia frowned at them. After ten minutes of being ignored, Julia picked up a wooden sword and attacked both Jack and Bill at the same time.
"Jewel, you're not supposed to fight!" Bill whined. "Girls don't fight!"
Julia lifted her head up proudly. "We do so fight!" she said. "Mama fights whenever we raid a port!" Jack nodded in agreement. Bill rolled his eyes in disbelief. "I'll prove it!" Julia stated. She swung her sword at him, Bill blocking her at the last moment. The two children then began to take the fight seriously. Bill had learned to fight from his father, while Jack and Julia had learned by watching their parents. Considering that both their fathers were superb swordsmen, it should have been a draw between Bill and Julia. However, that was not the case. Julia had a distinct advantage: her mother, as well as her foster 'uncles' and 'aunt' were also superb swordsmen (or women), and watching both parents, as well as the crew of the Pearl, practice fighting had taught her much. It wasn't long before Bill was on the floor with a triumphant Julia looking down at him, smirking.
"Told you so," she said. Bill simply looked at her in amazement before getting up and bowing. He then had both Sparrows tell him all about their lives aboard the Black Pearl.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was late that afternoon when the adults finally realized that it had grown too quiet upstairs, so Jack had decided to go and check on the children. When he opened the door, there lay three small children, each sound asleep on the floor, their tiny heads resting on stuffed animals. He picked up his two little ones and carried them downstairs, signaling to Will to do the same from the doorway of the living room. Elizabeth showed Jack the guest room he, Lara and the twins would be sharing, and it was there that he set his little Sparrows down for a nice, long rest.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The next ten days passed quickly for the two families. Annamaria had grown tired of wearing her 'nursemaid' outfit and had returned to the Pearl, where the rest of the crew was enjoying a (what they felt as) a well- deserved break from caring for the twins (they were pirates first and baby- sitters second, after all). The Turner and Sparrow families had spent a great deal of time catching up on the past five years, and the Sparrow children found a great amount of pleasure in having a playmate that wasn't at least twenty years their senior. Lara felt terrible about her children not having anyone to play with on the Pearl, but that was the way things were. She had tried suggesting leaving the children in Port Royal for a few years to be raised and educated, but Jack flatly refused the idea; he didn't want his son to come out like Thomas or, worse yet, Commodore Norrington! No, the Sparrow children would be just like their father, and that was that. The rest of their time was spent walking around town or dining with the Governor. Governor Swann had taken particular pleasure in buying gifts for the Sparrow children, primarily because Julia reminded him of Elizabeth at that age. But each child came out even, gift-wise, and had thanked the Governor profusely for his generosity.
Finally, however, it was time to go. All three children put up a tremendous fuss at separating from their new playmates, but Jack and Lara were determined to leave before Thomas returned to Port Royal. So, after many tears and promises to return after the twins' next birthday, Jack and Lara gathered their little ones and headed for the Black Pearl and the open seas.
Little did they know that the basis of their fears would not be returning to Port Royal anytime soon.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Three months later:
Thomas gritted his teeth as he sat in a run-down Spanish bar, one that catered to pirates and thieves. He still couldn't bear the idea of sitting on a stool next to a bunch of bloody pirates, but there was nowhere else to go. He had been kicked off his ship, The Gemstone, over four months ago in France for not listening to orders and daydreaming while on duty. He had managed to make his way here to Spain in hopes of getting home to Port Royal somehow, and had managed to get some work cleaning floors in several bars; now he was scrimping and saving to book passage back to the Caribbean. However, Thomas knew that it would take years to save enough money to get back home.
Growling at the thought, he took a drink from his mug and winced. This bar had to have the worst drinks in the world! Even the poorest tavern in Tortuga had managed to have better drinks! Oh, well, it was all he could get, so he downed the drink in a single gulp.
"Easy there, Tommy, ye need to stay sober to clean the floors tonight," joked Mr. Key, the bar's owner. "I can't have ye passing out while cleaning, now, can I?" Thomas just shook his head and asked for another, which was easily granted. Thomas knew that Key didn't mind his drinking, as long as the job got done.
As Thomas took another drink, he heard several pirates talking in the background, snapping to attention at the topic of conversation: The Black Pearl.
"Did ye hear? The Black Pearl will be coming around soon, do ye think their hiring?" asked one man. "I really need work, and Sparrow's supposed to pay well."
"Nah, you don't want to work on that ship unless ye like kids!" remarked another. "I heard that Sparrow's got himself a bonny wife and a set of twins onboard!" The other men around him stared. "I swear it's true! Sparrow's got his wife and twin children onboard, and only men who can get along with the kiddies can stay on."
Thomas felt his blood boil. Twins! Jack Sparrow had managed to get Lara to bear him twins! The thought was unbelievable. Thomas then shook himself out of his thoughts to listen to more of the conversation.
The other men shook their heads. "Don't know what's going on in Sparrow's head, but he's definitely got the best crew in the world working for him!" exclaimed the first man, lightly slamming his mug on the table. "I'll take the chance! It can't be that bad, can it, and Sparrow may be daft, but he's the best!" The man finished his drink, nodded to his friends and left. The other men turned towards each other.
"Well, I hope that Sparrow knows what he's doing," said one scruffy-looking man. "Having a woman onboard is bad luck!" The others nodded.
"It would be twice as bad for Gary over there," the scruffy man said, looking at a graying elderly man down the table from him. "Poor Gary saw Sparrow's lass once when they were here a couple years ago, and it scared him stupid. He said she looked just like a lady he knew over eleven years back. He'd been escorting some young noblewoman home from a trip to the Caribbean when she was washed overboard by a storm. Never did find out what happened to her, folks thought she'd drowned." The man took a drink from his mug. "Pity, the girl wasn't more than eighteen years old, and people said she was a lovely little thing, too. Her father was never the same after that, and neither was Gary. He felt responsible for her death." Thomas' eyes widened at the tale. It sounded familiar.
"What was the father's name?" asked another man.
"Is his name; he's still alive, though still tormented in spirit," came the response. "His name is Lord Holloway of Keens." The scruffy man took another drink. "Very wealthy man, he is. He still has a huge reward open to anyone who can tell him what happened to his daughter. Unfortunately, that person has to have proof of his report of whether she's dead or alive, and it's not like he'll see just anyone. Ye have to be of a certain social standing to see the Lord of Keens."
After that, the conversation turned towards gabbling, and Thomas turned his attention inwards towards his own thoughts. A vanished eighteen year old noblewoman who had disappeared during a storm at sea in the Caribbean over eleven years ago; Thomas did some calculating. There had been a vast amount of people who had washed up on beaches all over the Caribbean, but only one had done so eleven years ago, and who was a woman of about eighteen: that person was his beloved Lara.
Thomas smiled. If he managed to convince Lord Holloway that Lara was his daughter, he would be able to take her from Jack Sparrow, see the pirate hang along with his crew, and be able to marry a nobleman's daughter as a reward for rescuing her from pirates! Also, the Sparrow children would have a proper father to raise them and help them forget all about the pirate they once called 'father!'
Thomas chuckled as he downed his mug of ale, before turning his mind towards how on earth he would get enough money to look like he deserved to see Lord Holloway of Keens.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
AN: Oh, Thomas is a sneaky one, isn't he? Well, now you know what's going on in the mind of a love-sick maniac. Oh, and the next chapter will take a jump to about thirteen years into the future, with plenty of flashbacks to help explain things. Anyway, thanks for reading, and please leave a review! Thanks!