Summary: Will and Elizabeth begin their journey by reading about Jack's childhood.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean, Will, Elizabeth or Jack (sadly).
Rating: PG
Warning: Mild swearing (once) on Will's part.
The Memoirs of Captain Jack Sparrow, part 4
Elizabeth had seen Will as he came along the boardwalk to the pier. Her immediate response was an involuntary smile, but an hour-old bruise below her left eye made this too painful. As he came closer, she could see some sort of turmoil in his face that had not been there before, and she knew it was to do with her. She remembered the times when they were happy together, and wondered what had gone so wrong for them to be so terrible with each other now.
"Good morning," Elizabeth greeted Will as he stepped down to join her, and attempting another smile.
"Is it?" He replied, sullen. He was shocked by the black and purple marks scattering her face. He didn't want to show his anger because it made him realize that he still cared about Elizabeth.
"Where's the boat?" She asked. He seemed to be pretending that nothing was wrong. Well, two can play at that game, she thought. "We need to set off."
"Right," he acknowledged, unable to meet her eyes.
Will lead the way along the harbour until they reached a weather beaten ship. It was a little smaller than the Interceptor had been, but the mast was damaged from much barrage of rain and wind. Many of the planks that formed the hull were cracked and the ropes were frayed. This ship was fairly old, and a lot of use had been made out of it over the years. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose, but said nothing about the state of the vessel. She just kept the empty hope that they wouldn't have to spend too much time on it. They gently tossed their packages into the ship, and then Will awkwardly helped Elizabeth to climb aboard, jumping on easily after her. He signalled to the sailors from the merchant ship a few yards away, and a couple ran over to release the rope that bound the boat to the shore.
"Thank you!" Will called back as the wind inflated the sails and the boat began to drift. They waved back and returned to their work.
Will soon busied himself with the main sail and rigging. He had picked up enough about sailing when he travelled with Jack to be confident about making the journey without help. Elizabeth had sat down on the closest thing to a chair; an upended bucket, and was watching Will uncomfortably. She felt useless and clumsy in her dress which, despite being the most practical she had, was certainly not designed for life at sea. Restlessly, she fiddled with the knot securing the top of her sack. She had brought plenty of money and a couple of spare bodices with her, as well as a loaf of bread. She had decided not to bring any of her many dresses, as they were all composed of multiple layers of heavy fabric.
Elizabeth had not told her father that she was going, and neither had she written him a note, as he would doubtless try to stop her. She had not informed Richard either, but she had told him their marriage was over and that she was going to stay elsewhere on the island. He had not taken it well, and she shuddered as she remembered his temper.
"Can I help?" Elizabeth called suddenly across to Will as she tried to rid her mind of the memory.
"No," he replied shortly, ducking to avoid the swinging boom. Finally, happy with the direction of the boat, he jumped down onto the deck beside Elizabeth.
Sitting on the side of the boat, he flashed her a brief smile, and she relaxed slightly. Will reached over and picked up his sack. Rooting inside, he pulled out the volume Jack had left him and turned the leather cover over. The letter fell into his lap, and he proffered it to Elizabeth, forgetting she had read it. She took it anyway, glad for something to do, and Will turned the next leaf. Despite saying he had noted down just important details, it seemed that Jack had started to write himself. His untidy handwriting covered most of the page, and tucked in the spine were several folded sheaves of paper. It was a list, from which he read a few names and addresses;
Whitechapel;
Marie Addyman, the Flaming Bore, Tortuga;
James Cloud, 7 Igor Road;
Master Hovis, Weary Traveller's Inn, Whitechapel;
Rue de Matins, Bordeaux;
Laura Saia; the Horse's Head, Tortuga
Many others continued overleaf, as well as odd details in note form through the booklet. Will did not read all of them. The boat was sailing in the direction of Tortuga, which he knew only took a few hours, so it would be a suitable place to look for two of the names he had noticed on the list, Marie Addyman and Laura Saia.
Will quickly read the tiny portion that Jack had already written. His scruffy hand made it difficult sometimes, but Will still found himself smiling as the words brought back memories of the pirate.
The infamous and feared Captain Jack Sparrow of the Black Pearl was born plain John Cooper, after his father, on 23rd April 1722. He was born in a small house in Whitechapel during the reign of kind King Charles II to an impoverished family. H is father was, by name and by trade, a cooper working for a large brewery, and received modest wages. John Cooper Junior lived a contented life in East London with his father, his mother, Jane, and his two sisters, Catherine and Mary. He received praise for his logic skills and intellect throughout the duration of his boyhood education at a small, local school, but was punished frequently for his cheek and disobedience to the masters. His dream as a child was to become a travelling bard, but his father encouraged him to follow in his footsteps as a tradesman.
A mere few weeks after John Junior's fourteenth birthday, tragedy struck. His mother died while giving birth to her fourth child, leaving the children's father to look after them alone. John Senior was unable to care for his three children during the day, as he had to work to provide money to keep them alive. As a consequence, his son was forced to abandon his schooling to look after his young sisters, who were only four and six years of age. As time went by, John began to spend more and more of his few pounds on whisky and rum to drown the sorrow of his wife's death and the guilt he felt at his children's poor upbringing. The small family slipped further and further into debt, until one day, two years after Jane's death, they were evicted from their property. Katherine and Emily Cooper were sent to live with their mother's parents in Leicester, but father and son stayed in London. They rented a tiny room above a butcher's shop, and John Junior took up work in a shire-horse stable outside of the town.
Times were very hard for the much diminished family. John could not afford to travel to Leicester to visit his sisters, whom he missed, and his grandparents felt that their son-in-law was too much of a bad influence for the girls. John was also involved in an accident in the stable: while lifting heavy items, he slipped and a large, wooden bar fell onto his leg, trapping him and causing considerable pain. After this, he was unable to work for some time and lost his job. His father was rapidly descending into alcoholism, and had taken to the habit of disappearing for days at a time. It was during this terrible time that the young John began to dream of escaping, and it had come to his attention that there was a great, wide world ready to explore. He decided to become a sailor with the first outgoing ship that would take him, so one day he hitched a lift with a horse and trap to Portsmouth, taking only the clothes on his back, a pocket of bread crusts, half a bottle of his father's rum and sixpence.
Although he doubted that his father would miss him, he felt the need to cover his identity just in case
It was here that Jack had stopped writing. The script had overflowed very slightly to the next page, and there was no trace of any other writing in the book. At least Jack had covered his childhood in London, but there was at least another two decades for Will to research, and he only had the vaguest clues of where to start. He could tell they had a long and busy year ahead of them.
Will began to wonder at Jack's language. It was more refined and formal than the way he remembered him speaking. He had always thought of Jack as very quick and intelligent, but his cockney wit and frequent use of colloquialism was lacking in the paragraphs he had written. Perhaps he had been taught to write formally during his time at school?
"How is Penelope? And the children?" Asked Elizabeth, startling Will out of his thoughts. He nodded.
"They're fine."
"It must be terrible to leave them," she laboured on, trying to get him to talk to her.
"It is." There was silence for a few moments. "And, arr… how is Mr. Stanford?" Will asked politely.
"Oh, he's his usual self, probably. We, urm… we didn't end things on very good terms."
"End things?"
"Yes, I… left him."
"Oh…" Will exhaled, with mixed feelings. Something inside him felt happiness at the news, but it was too much to deal with. They made eye contact for a minute, until he noticed her bruises again. "Did he do that to you?"
"Yes. When I gave him the news, he lashed out. Knocked me into a wall. Threw me onto the floor. I slapped him in defence and he lost his temper and punched me. He gets into a very bad mood when things don't go his way."
"Does it hurt?" Will asked, his voice shaking. He was inexplicably furious at Stanford for hurting Elizabeth. A husband was supposed to protect his wife from pain, not to inflict it upon her himself.
"A little," she shrugged. "It goes down after a couple of days anyway."
"He's done this before?"
"No… well, not often. Just when he gets angry or he's had too much to drink. And it's not really his fault anyway, I provoke him."
"Of course it's his fault, Elizabeth! I never hit you when we were engaged, and you never provoked me at all. Thank goodness you're away from him now. You won't go back to him when we return, will you?"
"Probably not, Will, but that's not for you to say! You're happily married; you don't know what it's like for anybody else!"
"If the bastard ever goes near you again, I'll kill him," Will hissed, surprising himself. Elizabeth, too, was shocked by the passion with which he spoke.
"Calm down, Will," she whispered, reaching out to take his hand. For a few seconds, they shared intimacy again.
"We're going to Tortuga," he told her, his voice cracking slightly as he took his hand from hers and shut the book. "Jack's written up his childhood in East London; basically, his mother died when he was fourteen, his father became an alcoholic and he ran away."
"How terrible…"
"Yes, and back then he was called John Cooper. He changed it to go to Portsmouth and catch "any ship that would have him", in his words."
"To Jack Sparrow?"
"Presumably."
"It's funny that we know more about him now that he's dead," Elizabeth mused.
"I'm not laughing."
"No, I didn't mean it like that. For all his incessant chatter, he didn't give away much about himself, did he?"
"He didn't give away anything about himself."
"Other than that he liked rum and women."
"Of course," Will smiled.
Just then the sail began to flag, and Will leapt up to secure the rigging. The wind had calmed, and a steady breeze was blowing against them. When he returned to Elizabeth, she had picked up the book and begun to read Jack's life story herself. Like him, she found the scrawl reminiscent of the pirate captain, and the words touched her. When she finished, she looked up to see Will watching her. Quickly, he looked away and she smiled to herself.
"Are you hungry?" She asked, the thought just occurring to her. "I know it's only a couple of hours since we left but…" she trailed off, taking the bread from her sack.
"No," he waved it away. "I made breakfast back at home."
"Really? You made it yourself?"
"Yes. Impressed?" He grinned, and she laughed.
"Were Penelope and Emily impressed?" She asked softly.
"They were asleep. It was a surprise."
"Well I'm sure she would have been delighted."
"Hang on… you know my daughter's name?" Will asked her, surprised. "We stopped speaking long before she was born."
"I asked Rachel."
"Rachel Butterworth? I didn't even know you knew her!" Will exclaimed.
"We've both known her since we were children, remember?"
"Oh yes… I'd forgotten."
"Anyway, I spoke to her a lot after you called off our engagement. She told me about the wedding, and your two children. I'm glad you're happy," she told him genuinely. "But I miss you."
Will was about to reply when he saw an island growing on the horizon; they were approaching Tortuga.
Thank you for reading, please review! The next part will be coming along soon.