Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean belongs to Disney.
Author's Note: Written in ten minutes when my friend told me to write a Sparrow/Friend-of-ours fic. shrugs
She'd been three years old and him five, and his mother called it cradle-robbing and given him a good boxing round the ears. Her mother had called her a good girl and given her a piece of toffee. She'd always been smug about that.
They were children of their environment. Boys grew up to be pirates and barkeeps, girls grew up to be whores and barmaids. A lot of the time it was both. The didn't know any other way, and were therefore contented. Appetites for sex and drink and trinkets grew with each year. Each year he sailed farther and farther abroad, and she charged more and more. But they invariably came back to each other, and the travel stopped for a few months and the prices went down again. Nobody could call it love, really, but they adored and respected each other, and it was generally agreed that that was amenable.
He left one day, with that twinkle in his eye and swagger in his step. She'd waved him on with a hand on her hip and a laugh in her voice. They'd had a fine few weeks together, and now it was time to pick up where they left off. They both knew that he'd come back and she'd be waiting, and the whole thing would start over again.
...but he didn't come back.
Rumours began to spread, that his ship was capsized, that his crew had mutinied, that he'd been left to die on an island no bigger that a house. That his shipmates were cursed, that Barbossa and his men were skeletons by moonlight. Each story was more radical than the last, and she found that she would be able to turn them into bedtime stories for the wee ones that were about to be born.
She called her son Jack, and her daughter Marisa, in honour of her mother, one of 'the best damned whores in all of Tartooga'. Such a reputation was a good thing to have, and she didn't know anything better.
Five years passed, and her Captain returned home with tales each more wild than the one before. And he fell in love with his children, who fell in love with their Da. She still whored and tended at whatever pub needed hands, and he kept on pirating, bringing back pretty trinkets for her and for Marisa. For the wee Jack Sparrow, he always brought home a new story and a new hat. The lad's too young for a blade, he always said. But a lad's never too young for a stout cocky hat.
Jack and Marisa grew up, little by little as the years went by. Jack became a pirate and Marisa began tending with her mum. And the Captain kept leaving and coming back with trinkets and stories and hats.
Jack was hung for piracy and Marisa found herself a steady man, so she was left to her own devices for the first time in eighteen years. Surprisingly enough, she found that she missed her Jack, but with him out and abroad fighting Barbossa and a love-struck pup at the same time, all she could do was wait for him to come back, and keep living this time around.
He always stayed long in Tartooga, now that he had a woman and ship and a crew, he could stay as long as he pleased, until the sea started tugging on his heartstrings. Then he was off on another adventure for a good six months, before coming back to Tartooga and his lady and his drink.
Some say that the Pearl was his only love. Others say nay, 'twas the drink he kept dear to him. There were only a handful of people (including the young pup who managed to marry the lass he'd loved) who knew that the Great Jack Sparrow was as good as married...
...but only when he was in Tartooga. Other ports and different seas and all that to contend with, you know...
