"Congratulations," said Will to Jack as they shared a bottle of rum in the captain's quarters of the Pearl. "You're a father."

It was worth the wait of saying the words, Will thought, as Jack managed to both spit out his mouthful of rum and choke on it at the same time. "What'd ye say?" he managed to gasp out between coughs.

"Birdie's a mother," said Will helpfully, barely concealing a laugh at Jack's look of appalled horror. For a breath, he pondered leaving it that, letting it eat at Jack, wondering where his virgin bride had come to have a baby of her very own. It was a pleasing thought, catching Jack at his own game, and one that Will was having a hard time giving up on. Then he recalled the look on Birdie's sharp little face and he thought better of the plan; she looked well able to exact her own revenge on Will, if she found out he did not pass on his message as promised. A shudder at the thought, and he choose honesty. "Breath, man. She hasn't put the horns on you. Your wife is raising her neighbor's boy, named him Jack after you."

Snarling at Will, Jack dragged his hand across his mouth, wiping the rum away. "Was that supposed to be funny?" he demanded.

Will shrugged, "'Bout as humorous as you forgetting to tell me that minor detail of Birdie being your wife."

"And is that any business of yours?" Jack shot back, as he poured out two more mugs of rum.

Will stayed quiet, trying out answers in his mind, sensing he needed to be careful with his words here.

When he had come to the Pearl, hidden as it always was in a secluded cove, he had come thinking Jack's marriage to Birdie was in line with a joke, something Jack had done on a whim to repent later. The sorrow in his voice made Will rethink that. What ever was between Jack and the child he married, it was no joke. Jack was more in earnest now than Will had ever seen him. "She misses you," he said finally.

Jack slumped with either the weight of the words or the rum. "Aye," he agreed heavily. "Knew she would. No help for it. She's a good girl, Birdie is."

Will couldn't let it go any longer. "Why'd you marry her, Jack? What were you thinking?"

"Drunk," brazened Jack, clearly lying.

"You had the banns cried," Will reminded him. "Were you drunk for the whole time?"

"For a long time, anyway." Jack met Will's eyes, dared him to ask more. Once upon a time, Will would have left it at that, a younger Will, one more in awe of the pirate captain than the Will sitting before Jack now.

"Jack, for once in your lying life, be honest. You married the girl, and its clear you have some affection for her."

"Course I married her. Had to, didn't I? She was my perfect match. My, what'd you call it? Soul mate. Only problem was that she was just a mite too young for the likes of me. You had to know her then," Jack paused, took a deep drink of rum. Fortification, Will figured. "Had to see her, for you to understand. She was this fey thing, wild. Never saw any creature like her, and there I thought I'd seen all the world had to offer." His voice drifted off and his eyes grew hazy with memory.

Jack stirred, looked past Will when he spoke. "T'aint right, man my age and a girl of her tender years. Was gonna wait, I was, for the opportune moment, as it were. But she was wild for me, couldn't wait," he concluded with bravado and Will just sighed.

"Jack, I met the girl. I know you haven't laid so much as a finger on her. Would you just tell me the truth? Tell me," Will suggested, thinking maybe it might do the man good to talk about what was clearly eating at his insides.

For a long time, Jack only sat and drank, and Will was sure that Jack would refuse to answer him. When he finally spoke, Will was actually startled. Jack spoke in his usual rolling way, his words hypnotic, as they always were.

"Birdie ain't her right name. Don't know fer sure she had one, her mum called her Girlie and so did all who knew her. T'was me called her Birdie, for her bones, all fine and sharp under her skin, and her so small, she looked like she could fly. A man'd see her at the shore, playing in the water, searching for shells, all dirty and ragged, but you could see in her face that she might be beautiful some day, if she got the chance to grow some. She was a scavenger, that girl, and right smart. You's tell her yer name, see, cause she'd ask and she was a charming mite, and next time she she saw you, she'd come running up, calling your name for all to hear. Nere forgot a thing, that girl."

"How long have you known her?"

"She must've been, I dunno, maybe five or six when I first made her acquaintance, as it were. Came to Port Royal running ahead of a storm, and it was all dark and the wind was blowing like the end of the world, and as I came off me ship, there she stood, on the dock, watching the storm ride. Craziest thing I ever did see, this girl, not even up to my waist, and she's standing there all alone and the wind is blowing like enough to throw her in the sea, and she's laughing. So I grabbed her up, din I, just to keep her safe, and asked her where it was she belonged and you can imagine my shock when she says, in her baby lisp, the name of the filthiest whore house in all the town. So I took her there, and the madam, she knew Birdie, by sight she did, so I guess it was where she belonged, but it struck me wrong. Made a point of visiting her after that, to see she was a'right."

Will heard in Jack's voice what the pirate hadn't said yet, so he asked the question, just to make him say it. "When did you fall in love with her?"

Jack met his eyes, no emotion on his face. "When I met her, a course. When'd ye think I did?"

"She was a baby!" Will had made himself a promise that he would listen to what Jack had to say and not be shocked, but that young!

Jack read right whatever he saw in Will's face and moved to argue his case. "T'weren't her body I craved, t'was her spirit. There she was, not even enough years to her name for her to count em on two hands, and she was standing in the wind and rain like she was born to them, and laughing, laughing like a mad creature. Knew then that she would grow up as wild and as fierce a woman as a man could hope to have, s'long as nobody broke her long the way. So I watched her grow, visited the whorehouse where her mum sold 'erself, and was all content to wait till she was a right age for me to make my attentions known. Not a soul on that shady street what didn't know she was mine to protect. But her mum forced me hand, she did. I came back one day and Birdie was sitting on the dock, crying. Ain't never saw Birdie cry fore then. First time she ever seemed the child. Told me what her mum had planned, bout selling her to the whorehouse, for those men what don't have my fine sensibilities and see something in a child's body that makes them hard for her. Had no choice, then. Did I?" Jack's voice was stark and bleak. It was clear to Will that some part of Jack hated himself for taking a child to wed. That he would have wed Birdie eventually was clear for Will heard in Jack's voice the same tone he heard in his own when speaking of his dear Elizabeth. Lovesick and more, lost and happily to Birdie's magic, but still Jack had married long before he meant to and was sick with it.

"You had no choice," Will soothed, because there was nothing else he could say. Birdie had been right when she said Jack's name gave her a measure of protection she would otherwise not have. And he had done as right by her as was possible, given a limited number of choices.

Jack kept talking and Will could tell this had been eating at him for a long time, this marriage no one knew of, for he talked to Will now like man making his confession to God and all His priests. "Brought her a little house, somewhere safe, gave her Whistler, who had lost his taste for the sea after losing 'is leg. Gave her all I could, though none of it was what I meant to. So I stay away now, keep my distance, so that she don't think I'm one of those men having an unhealthy lust for children. Not the life I wanted with her. Was gonna court her right proper and marry her when she was of an age for it. S'all ruined now and I don't know any way that I can make things clean again."

"She misses you, the idea of you, the reality of you. You saved her and she loves you as much as she's able, but she wants a man of flesh and blood to love, and not a name she remembers. Go home to your wife, Jack. She's a woman grown now and wants a man to love. She said to tell you..." here Will hesitated, not sure if these words were ones that Jack could hear, then deciding he needed the truth, if only as a goad to do what he wanted, which was go to the home he had barely seen and make Birdie his wife in truth as well as name. Taking a deep breath, he repeated Birdie's message and watched Jack's face go all closed and cold.

His face he could do, but Jack couldn't quite keep the pain from his voice. "She's a child."

"She's not. Maybe when you saw her last, she was. But I saw her this morning and she's a woman. Sixteen. They marry younger than that here, and you know that as well as I. If things had gone the way you wanted, you'd be courting her even now, you know it's true."

"I'm old enough to be your da, never mind her own," Jack pointed out.

"She's grown. Ready and waiting for you."

Sparrow looked out the window, looking older than he had any wont to. "How long did she say she'd wait?"

"Man, don't be a fool! You're docked here, she's waiting in that little house you brought her, and she's not a bad looker, for a sharp little girl."

Jack smiled then, that smile that had gotten them in more trouble than Will cared to think about, and then the other man swung up out of his chair. Grabbing the rum, he finished the last of it and punched a friendly fist into Will's shoulder. "Mayhap you're right, at that, Will me boy."

"Thought you were in a hurry," Will called after him.

"Don't I seem to be?"