Title: Finding Jack (yes, smart me. Geoffrey Rush/Finding Nemo, etc. etc.)

Author: Satan's Sidekick, aka Connie

Summary: Rose is Jack's daughter. She just doesn't know it yet.

Disclaimers: Pirates of the Caribbean and co. belongs to Disney, and I think that's the short of it.

Author's Note: This is a complete rehash of the previous version. As in, I have vaguely the same plotline and characters, but written differently. I have tried to make this as unMary-Sue as possible, but I've probably self inserted me anyway. So sue me.

~**~

Prologue

Her mother had always scolded her for reading under candlelight.

The book was familiar, always the same, with the ever likeable Captain Jack Sparrow and his adventures on the high seas. Rose had tried her hardest to keep it safe, but it was quite impossible after she had started taking it everywhere. Some of the pages were ripped and dirty, and the binding was breaking. She supposed that it didn't really matter all that much since she'd committed most of it to memory anyway.

Her parents had read it to her as a child, and on her tenth birthday, her mother had given it to her. Phillip, on the other hand, got a real sword which Rose had been insanely jealous about at the time, but after she realised that her brother had restrictions imposed on his present, and she had not, she cheered up considerably. Rose honestly didn't understand why her parents bothered putting the weapon away, though she'd long suspected that it was because of her, and not Phillip.

She ran her fingers over the spine and the fading gold leaf. She could trace the letters "Captain Jack Sparrow" by J. Gibbs embossed into it.

There were two very curious things about the book. First, was not the book itself, but rather the reaction her mother, and to a lesser level, her father had when they saw her reading it. It was a mixture of anxiousness, sadness, and perhaps even resignation. Rose found it distracting and had stopped reading anything in front of her parents a few years ago, unless it was absolutely essential. And of course, she would never express her longing to meet a pirate and even become one.

The second, and more interesting fact about the book, was the scrawl that was written inside the cover. In blotched, misspelt writing, it read: "Congratulasions Young William and Miss Swan".

She had asked her mother about it once, to which her mother, an usually loud spoken woman, even if Rose did say so herself, replied, "It's always been there," which wasn't really an answer, but looked upset enough that Rose never had the courage to ask again.

It was all very mysterious.

She turned the page carefully, hanging onto every word as if she were reading it for the first time and not the hundredth.

Captain Jack watched with dismay as his mutinous first mate, Barbossa sailed away with his ship on his way to the Isle de Muerta. However, when men of lesser calibre would have done away with themselves with their remaining shot, this was not the infamous Jack Sparrow. While his ship was still in sight, he waded into the shallows, and there he stood for three days and three nights, using the secrets of the East that had been taught to him by monks to survive without water, food or shelter.

While Rose wasn't quite stupid enough to believe everything that had been written in the book, there was no doubt in the pirate's existence. And as much as she loved Uncle James, she thought it sad that he was so single-minded about getting rid of pirates and hanging them. And of course she'd heard the rumours about Jack Sparrow being in Port Royale – before her time of course – but it wasn't as if her parents had something to do with it. More like he escaped from the dungeons and commandeered a ship.

Rose sighed and looked out the open window. She always left her windows open, and when the breeze blew in, she could smell the unmistakeable saltiness of the sea. If she had a ship, or even just a boat, she could get out of this dull, dreary town. She'd have an adventure, and drink rum with pirates. A boat was freedom.

The ocean was freedom.