Chapter 4

Captains Quarters, The Black Pearl, present...

He wasn't exactly sure what to do with this creature. The little thing that looked lost and frightened in his cabin. He sat on his bed and stared at her as gravely as she stared back. She had the biggest eyes he'd ever seen on a child her age, so big and clearly wounded in a way that no amount of stitching could fix.

He held out a hand to her, forcing himself for once to show genuine in his expression. "Come here love," he said quietly. "We must have an accord here, between you and ol' Jack."

She moved slowly, as if she thought he might attack at any moment. When she was within reaching distance he pulled her to his lap, and held her gently.

"You know who I am?"

She nodded, hugging her precious rabbit.

"Did she tell you who I am to you?" He didn't have to say who 'she' was and he knew it.

Again, she nodded. Her grip tightened. Jack set his mind then and there to find her a new doll the next time he came across a ship carrying such things.

"Well, then she told you more than she did me," he admitted reluctantly. "I would have met you before this, had I known."

She chewed her bottom lip, but nodded again.

"Listen lass," he continued. "You don't have to worry. Whatever happened, ol' Jack will take care of it, and of you. Them who took her, well, it'll be taken care of. Captain Jack Sparrow doesn't let go of things easy love, and I let her go too easy once before."

The round little face tilted, big eyes full of questions that could not be voiced. He smiled at her and picked her up again, turning to tuck her in the bed.

He softened his voice even further, stretching himself between the world and this little girl. "Would you like to hear a story?" he asked, adjusting the blanket about her.

She nodded gravely.

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful goddess of the sea, who loved an ordinary sailor..." he began his tale and wove a tail of love and tragedy. Her eyes were closed before Davy Jones had even set off for the underworld.

He smiled a small, rare smile at the peaceful expression on the girl's face. "Abigail Margaretta eh?" He stroked her hair thoughtfully. "Not very piratey. Need a good pirate name lass," she let out of little whimper, the first noise he'd heard from her since her arrival. "Take that as agreement," he nodded to himself and let his head rest on the pillow. "Peg Sparrow...has a nice ring to it, me lass."

Aboard The Black Pearl, two weeks later...

She watched him, at all times she was aware of where he was, and he knew it too. It unnerved him, to be so staunchly observed, but he accepted it with grace. He was Captain Jack Sparrow after all.

When he had awoken the morning after his...surprises, he found himself lacking a little girl. For about thirty seconds, he felt an unreasonable panic deep in his chest, before he spotted said little girl sitting at his table, clutching his blanket in addition to her doll. 'Clearly,' he had thought irreverently, 'she has developed an habit of clinging."

And it was true, she certainly clung with talent. As he walked about the ship making his rounds, one of his coattails was nearly always firmly grasped in one of her grubby fists, as she trod along beside him. Other than her desperate need to have a physical grasp on him, she rarely acknowledged his presence. She stared at the sea with a sailor's focus, as if it held all the secrets of life and perhaps the location of her lost mother.

When not attached to his hip, she sat by Gibbs, her eyes wider than ever as she listened to his stories. For his part the old sailor was ecstatic to have a captive audience – after he'd made his initial complaints of course.

"Powerful bad luck keepin' a fe-male aboard Cap'n," Gibbs had said fearfully. "Especially one as unnatural silent as that. Women folks should speak their mind, this one stares like she's readin' your very soul."

"Well I don't know as they should speak but they do tend to do it nonetheless, I personally find the change in spirit rather refreshing." With that the topic was closed, and Gibbs kept any further opinions to himself – though no one missed the light that appeared in his eyes with a grave little face would appear at his knee, looking expectantly up at him.

Today, she stood at the rail, ignoring both captain and first mate in favor of a conversation of nods with her stuffed rabbit, and searching stares in the sea. Her dark eyebrows drew together, and her lips pursed in displeasure. Across the deck, Jack watched her, his expression somewhere between worry and amusement.

"Peg!" She turned when her name was called, but didn't move from her vantage point. The seas were calm, one could see for miles. Jack let his hand rest on the little girl's shoulder and followed her gaze to the horizon. She twisted and looked up at him, her small face pulling a frown.

Jack was no less than shocked when Cotton's parrot appeared on the rail beside her, cawing loudly. "All hands on deck!" It screeched, flapping its wings. "Man overboard!" Abigail reached up and smoothed its feathers with small deliberate motions, and it settled.

Jack tried not to think of the implications of this particular development. "Aye lass, we're headed after her now. We'll save your mother and she'll take you home."

She didn't acknowledge his response, instead she just looked back at the ocean. She pressed her face against the soft cotton belly of the rabbit, and Jack heard soft murmurings coming through the worn fabric. "Momma," was the only word he caught.

Jack turned and stalked back toward his cabin, finding himself suddenly in need of a very large bottle of rum and some space that did not have a grey-eyed creature that looked altogether too vulnerable for him. No, and he was certainly not going to think about what would happen if – WHEN – he rescued Mrs. Turner and had to go back to talking to people who talked back.

For a few brief moments as he walked along the rail he imagined what would happen if he were too late, if, when he reached the destination his compass pointed toward, he found nothing but a lifeless body and eyes that would never spark with anger or passion at him again. Or possibly worse...if he found her broken and lost from the torture, unable to comprehend that she was safe again. Unable to ever be safe again.

He went completely rigid and for a moment thought his heart might stop with the fear of it, but he forced the idea from his mind, as he had so often in the past weeks, and continued to walk to his cabin. He knew that the bottle of rum would be gone in minutes, and he'd have to be drunk before he could safely tuck his Peggy into bed tonight.

Shipwreck Cove, six years previous

"He was restless," the old man's eyes met hers, and she felt a sharp tug at her from the sadness in them. "Never wanted to be in one place for long, couldn't stand it. I suppose I could be blamed for that and deserve it too."

She leaned over the table intently. "But what was he like?" She shouldn't have been asking, she knew it. He would be angry, but she was so desperate to understand. She wanted to break this coldness between them and this seemed a good way to find a way. "Was he frightened of anything, or brave always? What was his mother like?"

That was an easier topic, and the old sailor leaned back. "She was beautiful," he began the story as many have begun before. "Loveliest woman I ever laid me eyes on. A walking dichotomy was me lady Vianne d'Valois. Her mother called her Yaritza. Her father was a French royal, some title or another I never looked too close at. A prince she said once or twice. But it was her mother she took after. A shaman from the Americas, a native tribal woman versed in magicks. They say Jackie's a bit god-touched and that be where he got it. Old Talise blessed the boy at birth, and cursed him too. Generations on her side followed the sea, and where I had cursed m'self with it of me own volition, Jackie was cursed at birth."

A small portrait was somehow in her hands, and she let out a gasp. He hadn't lied about the beauty of his lady, she held herself as a royal, but her countenance was entirely exotic. Dark skin and slanted eyes, she looked as if she had been painted from a storybook, an image of how a native princess should look. Despite her beauty, Elizabeth's attention was immediately drawn elsewhere in the small painting. Though Vianne sat with perfect posture atop a velvet settee, at her feet sat a boy no more than four or five. He was intently focused on a toy ship, and Elizabeth felt her heart constrict. 'Jack.'

"Aye, the boy was destined for this life," Teague continued, as if he'd never stopped. "A father can't help but wish for better though, for his only son. The sea is no place to raise a child, and no child can be happy when it's left behind."

Elizabeth looked stricken, her thoughts wandering far away to England – then back to Shipwreck Cove, and her hand resting protectively against her still-flat belly. She wasn't so very worried – after all, who would touch the Pirate King?

Aboard die Süsse Liebe, present...

He was a madman. If she hadn't known that when she first woke, she knew it now. He was too cruel, too inhumane to be anything but completely mad.

He had informed her, quite calmly, that not only did he want to show her broken, tortured body to Jack Sparrow, he needed to make sure some of the marks healed – to show exactly how long he had kept her in pain. "I don't want Jack Sparrow thinking it was a quick death, ja?"

When she spat the word 'Captain' at his face, he backhanded her and they began their first 'session'.

So he started almost immediately. There were burns covering her arms where he had put out the cigars he lit at the end of every session and she ached perpetually from his brutal carnal appetite. He had taken her the first night she was conscious – had chained her to the bed and encouraged her to scream. He said it made it better...and so Elizabeth swore never to let him hear a sound from her. She had nearly bit off her tongue at times, but she refused to let him hear her scream.

She would not be broken, she had sworn it to herself.

Eventually she ceased to process the times between...she knew only pain. The few times she regained senses enough to react, she had only two thoughts, one for the man whom, as she was daily informed, was racing to her rescue...and his death; the other for two small children, neither with fathers to protect them. Her nights were tormented with visions of the death and pain her deceptions would cause...Jack's lifeless body, strung up beside the beaten remains of her children. She could survive any pain that Richter threw at her – but she would never survive losing any more of those she loved.

Aboard the Black Pearl...

Jack gently swept the loose strands away from Abby's forehead. Her hair was so long he could wrap it around his wrist several times without disturbing her, and he marveled at the softness of it. She was like a lamb, all softness and innocence.

He lay beside her again, his fingers gently wrapped around her small wrist, as if to assure himself, even in sleep, of the irreplaceable treasure he now found himself in possession of. He stroked her soft cheek with his free fingers, and fell asleep to the sound of his own voice as he told her one of his millions of stories. 'Someday,' he thought as he reached sleep, 'someday I will tell her one that is true.'

And Jack slept, confident that in the coming days he would rescue his bonny lass and come out victorious in the eyes of God.