Lost and Found

Disclaimer: I don't own POTC, but I do own Sylvie and this plot.

Summary: Sylvie has a past with Jack that's hard to forget. When she meets up with him unexpectedly, will the memories they share and the present they have affect their future? One shot (?), please review.


Chapter 1: The Siren's Call

Sylvetta Grei DiCalista reasoned that she was possibly the biggest fool on the face of the earth, and if she ever met another as foolhardy as herself, she'd be named a saint.

She was sitting in a corner of the rowdy bar in a tiny, run-down island dubbed Tortuga. Her brown breeches were rolled up to her knees, black knee-high boots gleaming softly in the flickering candlelight, and breezy white blouse hugged her wrists. As she nursed a bottle of rum, pirates, farmers, and other men sang and drank around her bent on getting up in the morning with a whore wrapped around their waist and a story to tell. She came here often with her crew to let them have a "little" fun, before they sailed the high seas once more.

'I'm still not over him, am I? It's been two fucking years, and I'm still not over that bastard.' she sighed. 'Then I am a fool.'

An arm encircled her shoulders, and a drunken face leered at her. "Come, Sylvie, sing us a song!" The agreements of her other crewmembers, and local islanders, bellowed through the thick smoky air.

Sylvie shook her head. "Not tonight. I'm tired," she said, suddenly feeling older and more ridiculous than her age of 23.

"Please?" he said, daring to squeeze tighter and rub his hands up and down her arm in an attempt at friendliness. She gave him a warning look that threw daggers, and he laughed nervously and quickly scrambled away.

No sensible man knew to mess with her, after she slit a man's throat in this very same tavern ("The Siren") for raping a barmaid.

She had been at her job for 2 years, pirating, plundering, and smuggling on her hardy vessel, Isis, named after an Egyptian god of death or whatnot (A/N: is this correct? Not sure…), and had the battle scars to prove it. She sighed, usually sparked green eyes dull with rum and sudden depression. Flicking her wild and truthfully untamable black hair off her shoulder, she glanced nonchalantly around the bar. Same crowd as usual, ordering the same goddamn drink, sleeping, however, with a different slut each night.

A man with a truly disgusting old white shirt stumbled in, abruptly, and a few glanced amusedly at him. "The Black Pearl jus' arrived a' port!" he exclaimed, then stumbled out quickly again. The room exploded with death threats, laughs at amusing memories, and old bargains yet to be paid.

Tom, her first mate no older than 55, glanced at her warily. "The Pearl, did you hear that, Cap'n?" Sylvie sighed. He remembered what had happened, and was the single one sober enough to care. Sylvie didn't answer him as she got up from her seat, walked swiftly over to the staircase, and mounted it. She reached the long hallway, and walked towards the room she was staying in, opening the creaking door and walking tiredly in. She smiled at the sight of her baby sleeping in his crib, dark wisps of hair framing his chubby face. It was late, around 10pm, and he had been asleep for four hours. Sylvie reached, almost tentatively, out to stroke the boy's face, stirring him ever so slightly. He opened his round chocolate orbs, and cooed sleepily at her.

'Should I…" Sylvie mused, staring at the tiny form. Suddenly filled with a vengeance so powerful even she was afraid of it, she bundled him up in an old blanket and clutched him to her chest, walking quickly out of the door and down the staircase. Indeed, it looked like most of the Pearl's crew already had liquor clutched in their grimy fists, and were laughing and carrying on. Sylvie's eyes flew across them, visually inspecting new scars and grayer hair.

She found him. Time stopped, nothing or nobody seemingly moved an inch as they gazed into each other's orbs once more. Sylvie couldn't even hear herself breathe; it was unbearably quiet, at least in her mind. The same worn tri-corner hat, the same dark blue overcoat, the same twinkling silver ornaments and beads braided into his dark brown hair. She watched, not even daring to hope, as he slowly got up and walked over to her.

"Sylvie," he said neutrally and unblinkingly. He looked down at the child she was clutching like a lifesaver in her arms. Sylvie glared at him, hatred and sadness and longing blossoming in her heart like a thick weed.

Flashback

Jack whispered, fear choking his voice, "It's not mine, is it? You've been whoring around, haven't you? Haven't you?"

Sylvie knew he was angry and drunk enough to hit someone, although she also knew he never would dare lay a finger on her sober or intoxicated.

"Jack, you don't understand, he kissed me!" Sylvie exclaimed, begging him to believe. It was the purest truth, his cabin-boy, in a rowdy bar in Port Royal the night before, had cornered her and began to lock lips with her own. She quickly kneed him in the groin right off, but Jack saw the entire thing. Her reputation as flirtatious overrode her love for Jack, apparently, because he turned away from her. She had the coldest fear it was to be forever.

"How could you do this to me," he croaked out, arm resting on the wall he was leaning up against. "I loved you. Love you…"

End of Flashback

"Meet your son," she said viciously, and for once he didn't have anything to say. There was nothing in the boy's features that came close to the cabin-boy. It was Jack's, and he knew it.

The months they spent together slammed back. The memories collided with the present, here, this little boy in her arms, the love they shared and still do, tucked away into a corner of their mind, never daring to take it out to examine it and restore it.

This was beginning of an end, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be pretty.


((A/N: I finally got around to putting this into words! should I make this a one-shot? If not, please review, I need suggestions for names for her baby, and as to what my next move should be. I've got a vague idea how the story will go, but new ideas are always welcomed! Hate it? Tell me. Love it? Tell me))