Oh my bloody goodness gracious! Four reviews! Well my day is now ecstatically wonderful, thank you so very much to all the reviewers!
Thank-yous at the bottom; reviewers have not gone overlooked!
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Chapter Two
I do not know how long I stood staring after Scarlet in that crowded bar, but it must have been quite a while, seeing as some of the men that occupied the nearby tables began to wonder if I had turned into a statue.
A child?
"What the bloody hell is she talking about?" said I out loud, followed by outrageous glances from the folk around me, as they silently questioned my sanity.
I finally mustered up enough strength to snap out of my temporary state of shock, and I walked straight forward and barged through the large swinging doors that Scarlet had disappeared through just moments before.
I found myself in a dark hallway, crowded with passing waitresses and such. I smiled suggestively at a tiny blonde waitress-whore, before receiving a nasty smirk from her and a little "Hmph!" as she walked away from me. I scoffed and leaned against the wall that I was coincidentally standing beside, turning my attention back to the hallway, studying it intently as I tried to blend in. Which wasn't easy, let me be the one to tell you.
Along the wall opposite the one I was leaning against were two other doors that people—well, mainly women—seemed to be coming in and out of at a very fast constant pace. A pretty little stout dame with black hair wearing a yellow, circulation-cutting dress walked by me and I whistled to get her attention. When she saw me, she frowned deeply and I beckoned her to come hither.
"Um, you're not supposed to be back here, sir." Said the dame, approaching me cautiously, but I smiled my best handsome-pirate smile at her in a most sincere apology, and she blushed furiously with a smile.
"Can ye tell me where Scarlet is, love?" I spoke slowly, as if I were talking to a child, making sure she understood every word above the noise of the jam-packed hallway.
The girl contemplated my question, but then nodded slowly, secretively, looking around carefully like a little chipmunk, as if making sure she wasn't being watched. She then jerked her head towards the door closest to me across the hallway and spoke again.
"Should be in the back of the room. She'll be the one with the baby."
Baby!
"Thank ye kindly, love." I said in my manliest voice. "Have a nice evening."
The dame frowned at me in an unreadable expression. My guess was that she was quite angry that she had taken the time out of her busy business to help me, and I didn't even so much as sleep with her. Women, they always expect too much. I winked at her as I made my way through the hallway of lasses, hoping to make up for it.
I entered the room in which the lass had instructed me, and looked about. Truthfully, it wasn't that large of a room, but it was packed tightly with women.
I didn't say I was complaining.
I didn't see Scarlet right away, but as I walked casually towards the back of the room, I caught sight of her holding what was unmistakably a baby.
Baby!
I rushed over to her to surprise her, but Scarlet astonishingly didn't look particularly thrilled to see me again. I glanced at the sleeping, bald, tiny little human—thing—in her arms and looked at her questioningly.
Was that mine?
And Giselle, the mind reader, nodded, "She's yers, Jack Sparrow."
"Captain Jack Sparrow," said I automatically, but my voice trailed off when reality hit me smack dab in the face. And reality's got quite a right hook, if I may say so.
I was a father.
A bloody father!
Oh dear...
"I can't take care of a baby!" I screamed, watching the little squirt awaken at the sound of my voice. A few women standing around Scarlet shushed me loudly, but I paid them no mind.
"Well, yer going to have te, Jack." She held the baby out, as if offering it to me, but I backed away in disgust.
"You expect me to take it on – on the Pearl with me? I haven't time, lass! Ye must be jokin'." I looked at her, in hopes that she would, in fact, crack a smile and tell me it was all a big April Fool's Day prank. It may very well have been April. But, as I said before, pirates aren't known for carrying calendars.
"Jack, do I look like I'm joking?"
I studied Scarlet, yeesh; she certainly didn't look like she was joking. But you can never be too careful with wenches. They're liable to turn on you at any given moment; despicable creatures, they are. But, as a man, it's my responsibility to love them...and pay them afterwards, as is my civic duty.
I finally let them lay the baby in my arms and I tried to suppress a smile as it yawned and looked up at me with big brown eyes. It really was a cute little thing, now that I had gotten a good look at it. But, I couldn't let Scarlet or any of the other sluts ambling around know that.
"She looks just like Giselle." Scarlet noted with a smile, "But she's got yer eyes, Jack."
Hah! As if I could tell. All babies essentially look exactly the same to me. There are only three words needed to describe a baby: tiny, bald, and toothless.
I cradled the small baby in my arms and it smiled as it reached its arm up towards my face as it cooed and giggled at me. The stupid tyke was laughing at me!
At once, all of the nearby whores rushed to my side and began to loudly talk to the baby in high-pitched voices; very non-sexy, might I add. I must say, I believe that moment was the first time I had ever been displeased about a mass of wenches round me.
What is it with women and babies? They all turn into motherly loons around the little things, or so I've noticed. I thought about dropping the kid and running to avoid injury from the mob of women around me, but I thought it might lead to further complications if I killed it, so I finally jumped out of the circle of women and, still holding the baby, warned the wenches with my eyeballs to stay the hell away.
"Scarlet, love. Let's be mature about this situation, aye? Why can't ye keep it here? Or give it away?"
Scarlet rolled her eyes at my "maturity" as she scoffed.
"Give the baby away?" She repeated. "Right, Jack. And she's not an it. Her name is Grace."
Grace? Seriously, of all the names of all the languages in all the world, Giselle picked Grace?
"Can I change its name?"
"Not unless ye want to screw her up more, Jack. Would you please stop thinkin' about yerself? The child's lost her mother, never known her father, spent ten months being raised by whores in Tortuga, and now no one wants her. How do you think Grace feels about that, eh?"
Stupid Scarlet. She was just confusing the child more; even I knew that it couldn't talk yet, therefore could not understand that everyone around her was fighting over who had to take her.
"I think she feels..." I tried thinking up something very intelligent to say, which is no easy task for Jack Sparrow, believe me. "Sad?"
Good one, Sparrow. Scarlet will definitely see you in a new light because of that statement, I said to myself.
Sure enough, Scarlet's face turned a deep shade of, well, scarlet, and she stomped up close to me so that her pointy nostrils were just inches from my face. Her breath smelled like brandy. I hate brandy.
"Careful now, don't want to scare the baby with that face, love." I smiled as I tried backing away to avoid her stench, which only made her angrier.
"Jack Sparrow, yer despicable! And like it or not, that child is yer child and yer not leaving this island without it!"
I've never been severely shrieked at, but the tone of Scarlet's voice was pretty close to a shriek itself, so I decided not to say anything more as she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her, leaving me, the kid, and the other wenches chastised.
The other women, however, did not stay quiet for long. They, too, began to drain out of the small room until it was completely empty except for me. And the kid, of course.
Realizing that I didn't have much of a choice, I sighed at Grace as she looked up at me as if I were a crazy person.
"Alright, ye can stop starin' now. I'm yer father. Happy?"
I half-expected it, or, excuse me, she, to answer back, she was studying me so intently. I grumbled when I realized that there was little hope for me getting drunk and/or getting laid tonight, so I trudged out of the room to the still-crowded hallway, where I received inquisitive looks from wenches who thought I might be a kidnapper.
I felt very, very out of place walking through a teeming bar in Tortuga with a ten-month old child in my arms. As hard as I tried, I could not look manly while doing it, so I gave up and just tried to hide the thing as I smiled at some pirates who were laughing at me behind my back, I could almost feel their sneers. Grrr.
I wandered around the bar until I spotted the back of Gibbs' head, my fat, graying, trusty first mate, ordering a drink by himself at a booth. I smiled and decided to make a little fun of my own, since it obviously wasn't coming for me that night.
Cradling the baby in my arms gently, I walked over to his table and, without making eye contact, sat down. I could sense the confused vibes coming from Gibbs as I began to play with the baby's barely-there hair and talking to it in baby talk.
"Goo goo, ga ga! There's me wittle bitty girlie wirly! Ye're a cute one! Yes ye are!"
The baby, although obviously not getting the prank, played along, nonetheless with little giggles and gurgling noises.
When I finally stole a glance at Gibbs, my cheeks turned redder than Scarlet's had, and I came to the god-awful realization that God, or the gods, or anything, anywhere, with any source of power able to be used against me whatsoever was definitely not on my side tonight.
It wasn't Gibbs.
Now, I'm sure I looked like a complete idiot, and I hoped that the poor, confused Gibbs look-alike thought that I was inebriated, but I couldn't read his expression in the least. And, quite frankly, it was a very awkward situation, even for me.
"Well!" I said, as enthusiastically as I could, acting as if nothing had happened. "Thank you for yer time."
And I got up and walked away.
I mean, honestly, what else can you do in a situation such as that? Strike up a conversation? Buy the man a drink? Whatever could have been done is in the past, and I try not to think about what kind of a reputation I now have in that man's poor, confused mind.
Once out of the bar, I sauntered back down to the docks with the tiny lass in my arms still and began to notice that she hadn't cried or whimpered or anything since I had been introduced to her. I began to believe that she was my child, because if anyone can pass down tough genes, it's me. Let me tell you.
My crew drew straws earlier that evening to see which two unlucky men would get to stand guard at the Pearl while their fellow pirate mates were out doing God-knows what with God-knows who. That fine evening, two pirates – a youngin, Tom Brule, and an old geyser that we called Schmitt, got the short straws.
They were slouching, not doing a remarkable job. But, the ship hadn't been taken over and steered out of the bay by reckless scallywags, so I wasn't completely displeased with the men.
However, as soon as their dear captain appeared, the two straightened up, if you could even call Schmitt's posture straight at the age of sixty-something, and did a funny little salute-nod number. Tom was very fidgety, as he always was, as though he had ants in his knickers, and Schmitt looked half-dead, as always. I barely acknowledged the men as I walked past them with little Gracie in me arms. A conversation with those two men proved to be more difficult then finding the Isla de Meurta...that is, if you didn't already know where it was.
As soon as I stepped upon the decks of the Pearl, I felt at home again and it didn't matter that some wench had dumped her baby on me, or that I wasn't getting drunk, as I should have been doing. It was nigh, and the stars twinkled in the enormous mass of deep blue that was the sky. I sighed contently and looked down at the kid, who was falling asleep now that the noise from the city had been lost.
Entering my cabin, I looked around for a place to put the baby for the night. If I let it sleep in my bed, it might've rolled off or something, so I decided against that idea. My eyeballs searched the room quite desperately, for my left arm was growing a bit tingly as the weight of the baby for a long period of time began to tire it.
My eyes fell upon an empty rum crate. And me, the resourceful man that I am, decided to make a makeshift crib for the lass to sleep in. With one arm clutching the kid and one arm stuffing pillows into the crate, I managed to actually make a bed that would have actually looked comfortable if I were five feet shorter.
But the space was all that was needed to satisfy Grace, and I lay her down gently, surprised at my tenderness, and watched her yawn and drift off into a state of infant happiness.
I have a baby, I said to myself.
Little did I know, those words and the reality of the truth to them would not hit me until early the next morning.
Very early the next morning.
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Voila, and that's all for right now. Sorry if it seemed a bit rushed, and remember that constructive criticism is always welcome.
Thank Ye's
pandagrrl – My first reviewer! Thank you so very much for the review. And thank you very much for the note on the summary. I had actually based the summary on Jack and Scarlet's conversation, in this chapter, when she is persuading Jack to take the baby and she notes that "she has his eyes", but I realize that readers who hadn't read the second chapter could become confused by this, so I changed it. Thank you so very much!
Erica Dawn – May I just say, beautiful pen name! I had a great aunt named Erica Dawn, and she was such an amazing woman. Thank you so very much for the review, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)
That's Very Interesting – Jack is so cute when he says that line, don't you think? Glad you like the voice I've given Jack, I'm trying to be funny and serious at the same time, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I sure hope you have fun reading this story. More soon!
Beregond'sGirl – Thanks for the tip! I realize the language is a bit odd, or off, whichever you prefer, but that's the way I see Jack...a bit odd, but extremely lovable and somewhat mature when he needs to be, like when he becomes a father for instance. If my writing becomes not understandable, please let me know because I want this story to be the best it can be. Thanks for reviewing :)
Quote of the Day!
"You gotta take the good with the bad, smile with the sad. Love what you've got, but remember what you had. Always forgive, but never forget. Learn from mistakes, but never regret."
Apologies, I know that was really random. But I learned this quotation today and fell in love, and I thought I'd share it with you fine folks! Smile!
-Aurelie Belle