Jack Sparrow: [to Will Turner] "Now as long as you're just hanging there, pay attention."  "The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do." "For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can't." "But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that some day. "And me, for example, I can let you drown, but I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy." "So, can you sail under the command of a pirate, or can you not?"

X X X

"Sir would you mind coming in a telling me where my mother is, and what happened to her?"

Silence. Mr. Foster stood there outside of the door way in the dark night wondering if this boy had any sense of manners about him. The cool air that was associated with England's nights came in through the door that was completely open and Jack felt a definite chill enter the room.

The aide to the lord stood there in silence hoping that the boy would correct his etiquette error. Foster was taught to not answer a question that was not asked properly. The question should be polite and it should be worded as a request, not a demand, especially since a boy who couldn't' be no older than thirteen was asking anyway, and a servant to boot..

 Jack stood there for a good minute before he realized why the man was not saying anything. He could have slapped himself in the forehead, like one does when he realizes he is being stupid, but that wouldn't be "proper" either. Where were his manners?

His mother had at least taught him how to act around debutantes and their staff, despite his fiery protests against showing those peoples any measure of kindness. The aristocrats may think he was a heathen but he'd show them by being the definition of the world polite around them. He added polite words to the end of his question softly:

"Please?"

The man sighed and answered rather reluctantly:

" Oh all right boy"

Mr. Foster stepped in the room with a hesitant step as if by walking the room he would catch some kind of germ that would kill as soon as he came in contact with it.

He surveyed the room with critical disdain, the dark colorless walls that used to be sort of white and the old table with the sleeping pallets next to them, like he had never been to the house of the poor, and in truth he probably hadn't been. He probably hadn't any kind of idea as to what the abode was even going to look like when he came in.

"Please sit down sir and tell me what happened to my mum"

He walked just as heavily to one of the chairs made from old hard wood planks without any finish of any kind. It looked as if Jack had made them himself. He studied the chair as any aristocrat would who was suddenly invited into a home where ragamuffins lived, and were offered to sit in a make-shift chair.

He then suddenly looked very worried, like something he ate had given him indigestion. He had paled considerably, especially considering he was English upper crust through and through and shouldn't have to sit in such a chair. Would it hold his weight?

Surprisingly he found that he didn't want to somehow offend the poor boy, so he acquiesced. He walked the remaining distance through the room to it. He sat down slowly and relaxed visibly when the roughly crafted chair didn't collapse beneath his weight.

"Well your mother was out hanging up the laundry when she collapsed, the poor dear."

Jack wondered if the man was truly feeling sorry for his mother or if the words poor dear were just for his benefit. Jack sat across from the gentleman and wondered if he should ask to see his mother, or if he was going to be allowed Mr. Foster would have already said so.

"Sir is there anyway I can see her?"

The man cleared his throat before speaking.

"Yes of course boy, but not until morning." He glanced at the boy with contempt. How dare this boy ask do many questions and interrogate him. Still he felt sympathy for the boy and he rose and watched as the boy did the same.

"Thank you very much sir, but one more thing before you leave."

He paused for a moment before asking, the tension in the room thick.

"Where is she?"

"At the barber of course, where all the people go when they take ill." "Anything else?"

The question was more like a dare and not really an honest question.

"No sir, thank you very much."

With that last verification that the child was done speaking the lord's aide nodded to him and the boy gave the same nod back to the man. He walked out the door and Jack followed, standing then at the door way. The man then got in his little carriage and drove off, back up the hill and to the mansion and the city of West Port.

Jack could hear the horse's hooves on the cobblestones. The sound of the hooves lessened as the carriage drove away. The aide would probably put on his bed clothes, get under his feather comforter and forget all about poor little soon-to-be-orphaned Jack sparrow and his house of filth, but no matter, he had a feeling he would never see him again anyway. He didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

X X X

The town of Stonewall slept on through the most beautiful night that ever existed in the drab shantytown. The night was clear and the moon had a shine not unlike that of a polished mirror, cold and beautiful.

The weather was cool, but it was the nice kind of cool that blows over you with a gentle caress. In could have been below freezing outside, but those who were gazing up at the stars hardly noticed. They wouldn't have been able to notice anything short of a blizzard to look away from the sky.

In the town the moon was low in the sky and the stars gleamed with a heavenly light. One could waste away into nothing by looking into those stars, for if you got caught up in the rush of their beauty you would forget the rest of the world and its troubles and drift away on the misty clouds that were in the heavens. The whole city slept on through the beauty though. Everyone, except Jack Sparrow.

That is why the moon and the stars only come out at night, Jack concluded. Or else everyone would be lost to the sky.

He was on the roof gazing at the crystalline sky, just wondering. He couldn't sleep, the sound of his mother's breaths to lull him away was absent, and he was unable to close his eyes and relax. He feared that real sleep would evade him for the rest of his life.

If she died… But that thought trailed away from his mind and was gone. He couldn't bear to consider that. The thin veil of clouds that surrounded the moon swirled around, as if in a dance paying homage to its silver brilliance.

Despite wearing his jacket he did feel some of the chill that blew softly over him, but the chill was not a painful one like he had when he was ill, but only a reminder that he couldn't stay out here all night and stare out into nothing.

If he really thought of it, he realized all he had to do was look at the town and he would see nothing. Nothing but torn down shops and worn people asleep in their beds, exhausted from another day repairing nets, cleaning fish and making things out of scraps to for dinner, trying to find their huge families that had bellies that cramped with starved agony.

The town of Stonewall was buried of the weight of the rich city that loomed above it on the hill. Some of the people were digging their ways out of servitude to the rich of the city of West Port, but many were encased in debt to the lords and magistrates of the neighboring city, who would always increase interest so that they would never be free of debt. The city also happened to be the sister city of West Port, called Cornwallace. The city was lead by Lord Faimont's brother. Both were the most tyrannical lords of all England, or so he had heard. They both hardly followed the king's orders, and took it upon themselves to make there own rules and laws, practically declaring each other to be king.

So, if you wanted to escape the life of the poor on this side of "jolly ole' England" you had to escape the tyranny and prejudice that the house of Lord Fairmont seemed to have for the people who depended on him for work outside the fishing town. Not everyone could fish or even afford to after all.

Jack knew that not every wealthy person in the city of Cornwall or West Port was so terrible to those they employed and were owed by, but his mother had certainly chosen the worst people to work for. Many of them were truly good people, but he had never met them. The nice people at the lord's mansion were never allowed to speak to the servants, since the servants must know there place and not get ideas. The worst people it seemed in this town were those that had the most money. The Fairmonts had no sympathy. Despite their lack of understanding they both paid well.

He often dreamed his mother had a good boss and that he paid even better than Lord Fairmont. In his heart he knew if the people tried they could escape the problems that they were born into, but many had given up, feeling that he could not win. All the people would have to do was work hard and then they might be treated more considerably, but they had their dreams crushed.

When he got a ship of his own, he would sail away and never come back. With his mother dying he wouldn't have anything to hold him here, and he wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing. Mrs. Myrna told him not to forget his roots no matter what.

X X X

Deciding that he should go back inside and try to get some sleep before going to his mother in the morning, he dangled his feet over the roof and his foot caught the window ledge and climbed back in. He closed the cheap and poorly made glass behind him and the breeze left the room, leaving it quiet and a little bit warmer.

He walked across the room and towards the candle that flickered with an eerie glow in the little room. The lantern that it was encased in was scratched and dented, but it still worked.

His shadow was projected on the dingy walls, making him look tall and very skinny. He surveyed the walls with disdain and blew out the light. He walked to his pallet and he kneeled down. He did something he had never done before--Pray

God didn't exist down here in this forgotten town, for he had done just like everyone else in the whole world-- forgotten it. He questioned if the lord did even exist, and sometimes he wondered if the tales of a god who would take you into heaven for good servitude to him in this life was real, but his mother believed so, so why shouldn't he?

He spoke quietly almost to himself, but it was a prayer none the less.

"God if you really exist, could you do me just one favor? My mum, she's sick, but I'm sure you know that, and if you could make her well again, I would be most thankful. I promise to be good and listen to her and not be so impulsive, whatever that is. I will listen to Lord Fairmont's aides and wash the clothes until they are like new."

By the end of it he was biting back tears, his nose sniffling, but he vowed that he wouldn't cry. He had to be strong. If his mother was to recover he would have to be strong. He made the sign of the cross that he had seen his mother do and listened to see if he felt any different or heard a sound signifying that his prayer had been heard.

Despite his maturity he still thought like a small child about many things. He realized how foolish he would sound if he ever told someone that he had kneeled on the cold floor of his home and had waited for a sign.

Silence. But what did he expect? Some celestial voice answering his request, or a choir of angels that sang in perfect harmony? He would have to wait and see, and patience as anyone who knew him could tell you, was not something he possessed. He was a lot of things, but patient was not one of them.

Jack then laid on his hay bed and thought and thought and though. Not about anything in particular, but these thoughts of practically nothing kept him awake all night. Closer to the end of that night however, he kept thinking about his future and his mother, if she died, what would happen to him? Would he be thrown out on the street? Be found dead in the gutter of the city streets? Forgotten?

One thing that he promised to himself was that Jack Sparrow, future commandeer of the seas, would never be forgotten, if he had something to say about it. What scared him was he didn't think he would have a say in it.

He closed his eyes and thought about the only thing in his life that brought him any happiness- the sea and it all encompassing mass. Out on the ocean he would lose sight of the mainland and leave all the land lovers and their problems behind him. To him there would be nothing greater than leaving at sun down and seeing the sun set on the city and see it shrink as he got father away on his ship that would sail a faster than any other.

X X X

Suddenly Jack was a man. He a grown strong and proud, the turmoil of his childhood forgotten, left behind like when one leaves his family when they marry and starts a new life. He was tall and handsome and sure to capture the attention of the female traders whom he could share his high seas adventures with.

This would be what his life would be like in a few years-- a man with strength and a ship to call his own.

He could feel the deck creak beneath him and the sea rocked him back and forth on his heels as he stood there taking in the sea air and watching the terrible town of Stone Wall fading away and the hill that East Port sat on shrank into nothing. The sun was setting and it waves quiet a sight to see. Red, purple, blue, pink, yellow, and orange all rolled into one.

Another one of the Myrna's sayings rolled through his head:

"Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors warning."

The Jack Sparrow that he was seeing kept the words of the Myrna's close to his heart, since what had happened after his mother….

His Mother. He found that this Jack couldn't really remember his mother that well, if she had died when he was twelve, or if she still was alive and the saddening thing was that he didn't seem to care. Something had happened to this man that had changed the course of his existence.

It was then that young Jack in his dream discovered that this was not the happy and prosperous future that he had thought of in his mind. This Jack had a ship and a livelihood of some sort, but it was not at all how he had imagined. What was this Jack's seafaring occupation anyway?

He learned in his dream that life had not turned out the way that he had imagined, and he had been visiting Stonewall for reasons that he couldn't quiet understand in the dream state he was in. He was not leaving the town for the first time on his adventures as a trader, but rather he had come back after many years for another reason.

He certainly hoped the part about not missing his mother was something that never came true. If this was his future he would rather stay in Stonewall and never face that lonely and bittersweet life.

As the town faded from view he could feel the bittersweet thought that were running through the grown Sparrow's mind, but the thoughts were not clear and he saw no one image that would tell him what had happened to him.

 Everything was just a jumble of joy, sorrow and drunkenness, which was something he had no experience with since he had never had a drink in his life. Somehow he could still tell what it would be like if he got drunk. The Jack Sparrow he would become certainly had had his share of rum.

He then got a good look at the ship that he was on. It was completely black. From the moorings, to the mast and the wooden planks of the ship, there was nothing but the dark, foreboding ebony. The sails were black a well. The ship, however frightening it appeared seemed to be something that made the Jack of his dream happy.

He sighed in the dream and went to run his fingers through his hair, but stopped when he felt beads and hair that felt like it had been netted together. He then put his hand on his chin and felt a bread that was very thin, almost like a goatee, that had been divide into two strands, each with a foreign object that his dream mind was telling him was a bread, just like what was in his hair.

In his sleep twelve year old Jack Sparrow rolled over and stretched out to reach his mother that wasn't there. When he had dreams and nightmares his mother and comforted saying that it was only a dream and it wasn't real. This dream was different though, it felt so real. He could actually taste the salt in the air. By not finding his mother's warm presence his was slowly coming awake.

When he realized where he was and what had happened he woke with a start. The dream seemed almost like a vision. One thing he would change was that he wouldn't ever forget his mother. He had been taught to remember his roots. He laid his head back down and tried to relax. He thought about the Myrna's for some reason and as he drifted back to sleep he heard Mrs. Myrna's wise voice that was soft as if it came from far away:

"You musn't ever forget where and who you come from Jack, ever………"

At that Jack fell asleep. He needed the rest. Dawn would be coming soon, and then he would go to see his mother. He hoped he was not to late.