Disclaimer: I own nothing. I am a poor author with nothing to my name but a single rejection slip. Woo-hoo! I got a rejection slip! Does the happy-dance.

A/N (4/2/05): Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. Actually, my excuse is that I lost the story. See, my room is a disaster area, and I even managed to lose an entire pile of papers under a pile of other junk, and in one pile of papers I managed to lose a tube of toothpaste. Just to give you an idea how bad it is. But I recently cleaned the room (or at least the papers) and found this story. So….

The first fight was always the most memorable. Jonny's was no exception. The merchant ship surrendered at the first sight of the black flag, but that didn't matter. The pounding of his heart alone would assure that he remembered this for the rest of his life. There wasn't much gold aboard the ship, but there was silk, and silk was worth more than its weight in gold. They sold the silk at an out-of-the-way harbor and headed for Tortuga to find ways to spend their newfound fortune.

The pirates' haven was a terrifyingly active place, full of noise and danger. The crew headed straight for various taverns. Jonny picked one called the Faithful Bride. Oh, no, he realized. That's Stormwind at that table o'er there. He was about to move when he heard an almost-familiar voice.

"Sam."

Stormwind's face turned white. "Jack?"

"Disappointed to see me alive, mate?" the newcomer asked, sitting down across from Stormwind. He had his back to Jonny, so the boy couldn't get a good look at his face. But he had his suspicions. He'd voice them as soon as he got up the nerve to speak. Jacob—could it really be him? God, please let it be Jacob.

"Not disappointed," Stormwind said. "Not disappointed at all. Scared shitless is more like it. Thought ye were a ghost."

"Jacob?" Jonny managed to force past the lump in his throat.

Jack glanced at Jonny, but turned back to Stormwind before the boy could get a good look at his face. "Who's the kid?"

Stormwind grinned. Lopsided again, but not half-hearted anymore. "Cabin boy we picked up abou' a month ago. Says 'is name is Jonathan Kingsley."

Now Jack turned and stayed turned. "Jonny? Is it really you?"

"I could ask the same of you, Jack," Jonny retorted, still hardly daring to believe this was true.

On his head Jack wore a red bandana, which was hardly visible under his tricorn hat. There was some sort of black paint around his eyes. In the three years since Jonny had last seen him, he'd grown a beard and mustache.

"Oi! Beautiful!" Jack called to one of the barmaids. "Bring the kid some rum, darling." He grinned at Jonny, then his expression turned mock-serious. "By the way, son, it's Captain Jack Sparrow now, an' don't you forget it."

"No wonder they said I looked like you—son," Jonny replied. Of course I look like my brother!

Jack winced. "I may 'ave deserved that."

Jonny sipped his rum cautiously. He was pleasantly surprised by the taste. The talk turned to women and loot, and Jonny listened without really comprehending what was said. Only one thing mattered: his brother was still alive.

Days later, they sat together again, in another tavern in another port. Jack and Stormwind now seemed to be friends, although Jonny couldn't understand how that was possible. He still hated Stormwind, and he told the man as much.

Stormwind shrugged. "I'll 'ave t'remember that, so's when I get a ship o' me own I won' ask ye t'be part o' me crew."

"I wouldn't want t'be part o' yer crew, mate," Jonny retorted.

"Your loss. I'm gonna get me th' fastest damn ship in th' Caribbean."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Ha. You could make yer own bloody ship an' it still wouldn't be faster than the Pearl"

"The Black Pearl?" a nearby serving girl asked.

"Aye," Jack confirmed. "Ave ye 'eard of it?"

The girl nodded. "It attacked a town just south of 'ere last week. I 'eard about it from a second cousin once removed on my mother's side. She was there when it happened."

"Tell ye what." Jack pulled out a gun. "See this pistol? One shot, meant for one man. Barbossa. Bloody Barbossa, captain of the cursed crew." He was about to put it away when another serving girl came to tell them that there were soldiers coming. All the pirates got up to leave. By unspoken agreement, Stormwind, Jack, and Jonny were the last to go. That was how they ended up being the only ones left when the soldiers arrived.

"Stay where you are," they were told. "Drop your weapons and keep your hands where we can see them."

They bolted in three different directions. Jonny went toward the soldiers, who were so surprised they let him pass without trying to stop him. He would have escaped if he hadn't slipped on a discarded banana peel. He slipped under a table as the soldiers made up their minds to give chase, and they ran right past him, not knowing where he was.

He stood up, banging his head on the bottom of the table. Once he'd regained his feet, he drew his sword with a flourish, which caused it to fly out of his hand and embed itself in the rafters. When the soldiers came for him, he leapt up and caught hold of the sword. After they were past, the sword came free, and he landed in a heap. He leapt to his feet and ran out the door.

Before long the soldiers caught him. So much for running away. I wonder if they're dumb enough to fall for this? "Help! They're after me! The pirates! They kidnapped me!"

"What's your name, son?"

"Kingsley. Jonathan Kingsley."

"Son of the Matthew Kingsley of the Kingsley Plantation?"

Jonny nodded.

The soldiers put him on a ship going to the plantation. His father was indifferent to his arrival, except for a few choice words about his appearance. His mother was overjoyed. "Jonathan! Oh, you're alright! But look at you. What happened to you?"

"I was kidnapped by pirates, mum," Jonny said excitedly. "But I fought them off in a tavern and the Navy came and I was able to escape."

His father tried to keep him busy with the work of overseeing the plantation. It did keep him busy, but not in the way his father had envisioned.

No sooner had he been shown the fields where the slaves labored to grow sugarcane than he realized that he could never, ever hold another human being in bondage. Freedom was too precious for him to take it away from them. He couldn't free them, not right now, but he could help them. And he could win their trust, so that later they would follow him to freedom. So he took of his new hat and placed it on the head of a little girl toiling in the field, took of his coat, and set to work beside the slaves.

His father was furious. "Young man," he roared that evening, "your place is helping your family, not toiling in the fields alongside the scum of the earth!"

They're better people than you'll ever be! Jonny thought angrily. But he couldn't actually say it. He was always helpless like this whenever he faced his father, and now he was angry at himself for being so helpless. Finally he burst, yelling the first thing that came to mind besides piracy and freedom. "Don't you understand? Jacob is dead. Dead! One of those pirates that kidnapped me, he told me the whole story. He and his mates marooned Jacob on an island and left him to die. He laughed about it. Thought it was funny."

"My little sparrow is dead," his mother whispered. He wanted to tell her no, you little sparrow is very much alive. Stormwind and the rest killed Jacob Kingsley, but in his place is your little sparrow: Jack Sparrow. But he said nothing.

The next day they let him work in the fields, figuring it was his way of dealing with his grief. They both knew how much he'd admired his brother.

In a way, the labor was his escape. While he worked, he didn't have to think. And his older brother Carlos never came to the fields, so, for a while, he could be free of that scourge.

His father began to suspect he was infatuated with the mulatto girl Anamaria—an absurd assumption, since he still thought of Kelly at least once a day—so she was reassigned as his sister Rebecca's maid.

After a while, as his body became accustomed to the hard labor, and he stopped dropping off to sleep as soon as he fell into bed, he found that he had trouble sleeping, and for all the opposite reasons he hadn't been able to sleep his first few nights at sea. Now the bed was too soft, the room was too big, the floor didn't rise and fall with the waves. So he stumbled down the stairs to the slaves' quarters, figuring he could at least fix two of the problems. He found an empty room—little more than a broom closet, really—with a good, hard cot, and managed to fall asleep.

Years passed, with Jonny staying at the plantation because he refused to return to England. Becca also stayed, she said because she didn't want to be near Carlos.

A package came, and Jonny opened it to find his old Jolly Roger that Kelly had made for him. He wondered how she was faring, and whether she still loved him. Absently he fingered the ring, which now hung on a chain around his neck.

During the next visit, he begged his father for a ship, and permission to recruit slaves to crew it—"So I don't have to pay them," he explained. His father gave him permission, and he set to work.

A year later, when Becca was sixteen and about to be married to some rich husband who would probably keep her locked in the house all day, she ran away with her maid Anamaria, presumably to the maroons, those runaway slaves who infested the wilder parts of the land around Port Royal. Jonny promised his father he would find her, then sailed away with his crew of negroes to the inlet where pirates would make berth in order to trade with the maroons. As soon as they were our of sight of Port Royal, he ran up the Jolly Roger, proclaiming himself a pirate once more.

"Are we really going to return Miss Rebecca to the Master?" young Willy asked.

Jonny shook his head. "I'm jes' gonna make sure she's safe, tha's all. By the way, yer free now. Ye can stay on wi' me, or leave, as ye like."

A few slaves decided to live with the maroons, but most stayed with Jonny. They trusted him, and that was worth a lot.

He asked the maroons if they'd seen his sister. They said yes, but she and Anamaria had left the day before with none other than Captain Jack Sparrow. They said his name with awe, and asked if Jonny had ever met him.

"Oh, I've met 'im, alright. Good man, Jack Sparrow. I trust me sister with 'im more than with any other man." He'll take care of Becca, I know he will. She's his sister, too.