Disclaimer: I do not own, I just like to play with the characters

Drabble theme: Guilt

Word Count: 862 (yes I know… I got a bit carried away with this one)

Warning: Not beta'd. English isn't my first language.

This is a slight twist on my version of Jack Sparrow's past.

Counting the Stars

"Stars are forever, ye know that mate?"

Commodore Norrington still wasn't entirely sure how he had ended up here, on this lonely beach with a drunken and philosophical pirate captain, but he had. The one and only Captain Jack Sparrow was sitting right next to him, one arm wrapped tightly around his shoulder, the other holding a half empty bottle of rum waving it in all directions as if the arm lived a life of his own.

"I know, Sparrow… although there are falling stars as well."

"Aye, mate, there are," Jack empties the rum bottle in his hand and with a careless gesture drops it behind him in the sand. "Some stars always have to fall down…"

James Norrington doesn't like this change in tone. Of course, he's still not entirely convinced he likes being on a lonely beach with a daft pirate, but at least the pirate had been… amusing. But with this last line something had changed. Completely.

"What's wrong, Sparrow?"

Two surprisingly bright eyes are suddenly turned to Norrington. "Yer not going te make fun of me, are ye mate?"

Norrington can only shakes his head, not able to form any sort of other responding by the look he has just seen in the pirate's eyes. A look he never though he would find there. Grief.

Jack sighs, for a moment looking around him and than his shoulder slump for a moment. "Damned rum te be gone," he mutters. "Gonna need some fer this night."

"Sparrow, you've already drunk way too much."

"Ye know nothing about drinking too much, mate. I never drink enough to forget."

For almost a minute only the soft breezing of the wind and the rushing of the sea is heard. Than Jack turns his attention back to James, even a small grin appears on the pirate captain's face.

"Ye know mate… a very long time ago I actually was not so much different from ye… I did what I should do. I did what was my duty. Now you wonder, how did I become such a pirate extraordinaire?" This time Jack does flashes his grin and James feels strangely relieved to see this more familiar Sparrow back.

"I was a only a young lad on me first travel on sea. The captain had to make up fer his last travel when he was 3 months too late due to heavy weather. So he didn' get us enough supplies. More than half of te crew died of scurvy. Ever witnessed that, mate?"

Again James can only shakes his head, suddenly ashamed. He knows about what Jack is talking about and he has heard stories like this before, about captains who took too long to get to their destination and than tried to be quicker the next time… the only result that came out of that was that they had to change almost the entire crew since most of them died of that horrendous disease.

"Got it as well… lost 2 teeth because of tha'! But I survived… got lucky, fer once. But one person wasn't lucky… Carl."

James almost didn't dare to ask, but somehow he had the feeling he had too. It was sometimes really the best thing to just talk about the terrible things that happened to you.

"Who was Carl?"

Jack lowers his head and stares at his right hand, lying in his lap. "Carl was me sis, mate. Only family I'd left."

"Your sister?" James shakes his head. This pirate captain was even dafter than he had thought!

"Yes, mate. Me sister, Carolina. Me other sister had died, together with me mum of a disease, back home. Dad died b'fore on sea. Had te take care of her. But I need money and I couldn't life on stealing only mate, ye have te understand?"

Hopefully Jack looks at James before he continues. "So I took her with me. Dressed her up as a lad, said she was named Carl and so she joined on board of the Orchid. My fault she died!"

Out of the blue Jack pushes himself away from Norrington, trying to stand on his feet, but failing miserably. He falls back in the sand, hitting his hand hard on the empty rum bottle, which is soon thrown into the sea with such anger that James is happy he's not on the receiving end.

"Sparrow?" James himself doesn't even know what he wants to say. "It was not your fault. If you hadn't take her with you, she would certainly have died. Alone. Now she had at least had you."

With the, on this moment really useless, typical stubbornness from the pirate captain Jack shakes his head.

"I should have looked after 'er better!"

Than, as by a miracle, he manages to get on his feet.

"Now, mate. If ye will excuse me… I have a ship te find back. Methinks ye should get back to yer red coated men as well."


With that he stands up and starts walking, with his usual sway, into a seemingly random direction.

"Oh mate, b'fore I forget it," Jack waves one finger in the air. "It's still captain Sparrow fer ye!"