Hey, thank you all for the nice reviews! Please read this with the POTC soundtrack in your heads, it makes it more real: )
Here is Chapter Two: Turn of Heart
Captain Jack Sparrow was an infamous name in pirate rings. Ever since he had reclaimed the Black Pearl thirteen years earlier he had made a giant come back. From a drunken convict with no ship or crew, Sparrow had in a single day became captain of the fastest ship in the Caribbean and leader of the loyalist bunch of sea dogs that could ever be a crew. Of course, he was still drunk, but even that seemed to be changing. There were even rumors that it was an act, used to fool enemies in battle. Jack Sparrow didn't really notice the new respect granted to him.
His eyes, deep pools of wisdom locked with mystery, gazed at the distant lights of Port Royal, where Natie was searching for Will Turner. Trying to convince him to help old Jack out, one last time. In some of those buildings, officers of the Navy were dreaming of pirates, nooses, and glory. In others, children slept, their innocent minds dreaming of magic that many adults dismissed as simple fantasy. Jack knew better.
He had fought the undead, and for a while had lived as they did. At the time he had laughed, acting normal. Inside it had been a living hell. The relief he had felt when Will had dropped the final bloody medallions into the chest of Cortez, Jack was filled with relief at the end of the torment. And when Will rescued him from the gallows, allowing him to join his crew, Jack knew that he was indebted to Will. It was very unusual for him to feel indebted to anyone, but somehow the boy had turned his heart. The resemblance to Bootstrap had been so strong that a soft spot had developed. Vaguely he remembered Bill telling him that he had a young son back in England. They had been good friends. Bootstrap Bill had remained loyal to Jack even after the mutiny and Barbossa had taken over the Pearl. His loyalty had been his death. The man had died for him, and his son had twice freed him from a short drop and a sudden stop.
Jack turned his face to the sky and remembered. Immediately he had felt the difference, a greater sense of caring for life, it seemed. He didn't think it would effect his life so greatly though. It had been six years after the death of Barbossa before he realized what it meant.
9 Years Earlier
Gibbs was muttering about bad luck, getting the crew to laugh. Everyone was edgy, having just escaped a ship from the Navy's fleet. The fact that a sudden fog had rolled in only heightened the sense of foreboding. Only the captain realized the truth. It wasn't fog surrounding the ship, but smoke. He alone suspected the horror that awaited them. The reason Natie sailed under a pirate flag and was now in Port Royal. She could connect to Will, get his sympathy. They had a similar past, a past that might effect the future.
Natie was the only survivor on the first lifeboat that Jack's crew pulled up. There were only five lifeboats that were pulled aboard, but there had been four ships. Four ships, lost in a smoke mistaken for fog. Four ships, boarded by pirates and burned, now resting at the bottom of the sea. Each of the ships should have had at least two or three lifeboats.
Each story was the same. The ships entered the fog, and slowed to avoid any hidden rocks and ships. Out of the murkiness, a ship appeared. Someone would call to the vessel, asking if they were lost. Before the captains could reply, they would already have been boarded. The crews fought while any passengers were sent to the rafts to escape. As the boats set out into the smoke, most watched as the pirates destroyed the ships. The few survivors told Jack their tale in fear, knowing that he was a pirate. They all feared for their lives, afraid that this ship might have been the one that sunk their boats. Instead, they were given food and beds and clothes. Jack brought them to the nearest port, and even gave some gold pieces to the less fortunate survivors. The ordeal they had gone through was grim.
Little Natie's boat had been too close to the hull as it exploded, and the life raft capsized. Somehow, when she awoke hours later, she was back in the boat, but her parents were gone. There was no one for her. Jack took her in, and trained her as a cabin boy. Even though, she was, in fact, a girl. He tried to convince himself that he needn't take her in, but the soft spot in his heart wouldn't let him. Many times, he tried to find someone at a port to take her and raise her properly, but somehow he just couldn't leave her.
Natie had grown beautifully, in a pirate sense. Her skill with a blade was unmatched, save to him. Every pirate on the crew, from Anna Maria to Gibbs had taught her sword techniques, and she became better than them all. Her slight build allowed for her to learn to climb the ropes with ease, and she was often gazing out the crow's nest, always alert. Natie was one of the best pirates he had ever seen. But she deserved a real future, not a life of crime. Whenever there was a raid, Jack strictly forbade her to fight, unless it was in defense or guarding the treasure hold. She obeyed his every word.
Often, when he was alone, Jack would wonder who her parents were. Once, he had asked Natie, but she knew them only as Mum and Father. She had always been addressed as Miss Natalie, but her parents had called her Natie. Whenever guests visited her house, they never said her last name. Being only five, she didn't even know where she came from.
"Captain Sparrow?" A soft voice shook Jack from his remembrance. He turned to see Anna Maria, looking at him with slight confusion on her face. She looked up to where he had been looking, and asked, "What are you doing?"
With his usually slurry speech, Jack answered, "Just makin' love to this here bottle of rum. Been nursing it for some time now. Good year." He smiled at her. "Want to share some?"
"No thanks. Do you really think it was a good idea to send her alone? She's never been here before," Anna Maria said, gazing at the shore line. "I admit, the girl knows Tortuga better than I know, well, anything. But telling her to find Turner at the blacksmith shop? He might have left Port Royal, or have gotten a different job--"
"No, he'll be there," he whispered.
"Whatever you say, Captain. I'm going back to the galley. You coming?"
"In a while."
Okay, that's part two. I hope you enjoyed. Please review!
