۞

Will related several visions to Elizabeth, about Jack excelling in reading and writing, and becoming a cartographer's apprentice as he got older - a sea captain that had taken kindly to the youth thought that he had artistic talent and hoped to help the young man learn a good trade; since he was very small and frail looking for his age, the captain worried that the boy's cockiness and rebelliousness would get him killed. Jack supplemented his pockets with back street gambling, and, oddly enough, also took up tattooing to make money. It seemed that he had more than one outlet for his artistic abilities.

Young teenaged Jack also had discovered drinking, and taverns, and enjoyed mixing with the sailors, although he told them very little about himself. He found comrades in the sailors - they seemed to like the smiling, fearless lad - and he started to become the freewheeling Captain Jack Sparrow early on.

He also discovered the opposite sex. The prostitutes thought him to be very charming and handsome, good with large words, and he enjoyed their company now and then, knowing full well that they only cared for his coins; it made him feel loved and worthwhile, if only for an hour or two. The whores used him, he used them - they were square, in his mind, even if it left him cold and sad. Everyone wants to be loved, but his own mind worked against him... he had feelings for only one woman in his homeland of Ireland, but he felt unworthy of her... she was the daughter of a county nobleman and he had been sold into slavery...they had kept in touch, and he had feelings for her... but Will sensed that something was wrong, there... vexation...

So Jack learned to push - no, force - his dark feelings deep down inside of himself… he became known for his air of confidence, and glib tongue. He had every reason to become confident - he had survived this far, against tough odds. Young Jack was the one that could drink the most, lie the easiest, sing the loudest, always off-key, and pilfer everyone in the room blind whilst making his exit. He denied to himself that there were missing pieces to the puzzle of his life, but tried not to dwell upon it often.

"… has Jack ever really been in love, Will? Did you sense that?"

"… I don't know… I'm sure that he runs from it, like he runs from everything else…"

"…but what about happiness…?"

"… Jack's happiness is freedom from shackles of all kinds… Jack's happiness is the Black Pearl and the boundless sea. He is part of the sea. Perhaps he might have fallen in love, but if he has, he has pushed it far down inside of himself, and I could not see it. I couldn't really … I just couldn't really tell. I think that there is someone... but she has vexed him, and as a result he is afraid of love."

"… Jack is afraid of love…?"

The handsome young man sighed, "We can't change that, Elizabeth… he's just that way… we just have to try to help him not be afraid, because he is painfully lonely." Will suddenly remembered something, "Elizabeth, where is the lace handkerchief that Jack wears around his wrist?"

"His 'trophy' lace?" Elizabeth frowned with distaste. "It's here, with the rest of his clothes - I had Mr. Pintel put them to soak them to clean them of blood, and the lace is drying, here."

"Keep it close to him, He may tell all of us that it's a trophy from a beautiful woman… it's not a 'trophy'… he lied, of course. He kept it hidden on the Pearl and Barbossa never found it. Since getting the Pearl back, he has kept it tied to his wrist. He's had it since he was little. It's Irish lace, and it was made by his mother's own hands …"

Jack hooked up with an another sailor named William Turner - the other sailors called him "Bootstrap Bill", but Jack called him by his Christian name. William was wise beyond his 20-some years, and enjoyed the wild, young Jack's free spirited ways. Bill's best and most amused description of Jack Sparrow was that the young man was "interestin'". Jack taught Bill to read and write, so that Bill could attempt to send letters home to his wife - even if she could not read, she had a brother that could, so Bill imparted his love to Mary, while being careful not to include too much information about his life at sea. Jack and Bill became the best of friends, serving together on a variety of both merchant vessels and pirate ships. Now and then they would part company, but they would always catch up with each other in various ports and have a merry time with telling tall tales and drinking all night.

Jack became a very good gambler, and was determined to use his winnings to get his own ship. He never expected that he would win an entire ship in a lucky game of liar's dice, but Jack had become an expert cheat, as well as a pickpocket. His winnings during one evening of heavy drinking included a beautiful ship called The Wicked Wench… she was absolutely stunning and Jack could not believe his luck. He used more of his winnings to have her fitted out to his specifications. She was one of the grandest ships anyone had ever seen. For the first time since his mother died, he had a home of his own. His only sad thought was that his mother had not lived to see his lovely Wench… and his disappointed thought was that his father probably would not give a damn.

Jack was the captain of his own ship, fitted out with his own money, and he was younger than Will was, now...

Jack's troubles truly began when he and his ship were hired by the East India Trading Company as privateers by one Cutler Beckett. Beckett was a cold, hateful, power hungry young man, but Jack was grateful to have the opportunity to make a somewhat honest living on the sea, on his beautiful Wench. He did not have to have a lot of contact with Beckett, and it was just as well, as he was as much of a stick as Jack was freewheeling. They disliked each other strongly, as Beckett considered Jack just another vile ocean-sailing stray dog, and Jack considered Beckett a coldhearted, aristocratic ass, but since they saw each other very little, things went along.

Jack received orders to pick up cargo to be transported from the coast of Africa to the New World. When Jack inspected the cargo, as was his custom, he was livid with fury to see that it was human cargo - dark skinned African slaves. Jack did not waver once; his own skin was only a bit lighter than theirs- he had been sold into miserable servitude, and he was goddamned if he was going to take them anywhere to become forced labor. He set them free, with no other explanation to offer to Cutler Beckett except that slavery was wrong and that he would not allow his ship to become a slaver… he had disobeyed the orders of the East India Trading Company and had followed his heart…

… and because he had been a good man, and had done the right thing, he received his reward.

"… I could actually feel the red hot branding iron sinking the letter "P" into Jack's arm by Beckett's own hand, Elizabeth! I could smell the stench of his burning flesh! And this was after Beckett had ordered the Wench firebombed for piracy and sent to the depths, with Jack being the only survivor!"

"He almost didn't survive, though; he nearly had his left arm blown off."

"That's where he got that, " Elizabeth whispered, pointing at the horrible lightning shaped burn scar that ran the length of the underside of Jack's left arm. The young couple had seen this scar before, but they never knew that it went clear up to his armpit.

"He can't feel anything there…" Will said, absently. "We will need to be mindful of that if we get into any kind of skirmishes… Jack could take a blade or bullet there, and bleed to death for not feeling it."

When the Wench went down, Jack was so distraught at the utter destruction around him that he tried to dive to the depths and pull his beautiful lady back to the surface with him… his ship, his home, his freedom. He was found, barely alive, floating on a piece of debris, before being hauled aboard Beckett's ship - where he was flogged, in addition to being branded. Not the best evening of his life…

"He was found on a piece of debris, just like I was… " Will mused. "I was fortunate to be hauled aboard a Navy vessel… that's where I met you, my love - I was taken to Port Royal and apprenticed at the smithy. Jack was forced into his father's life of piracy…"

Jack was thrown into the brig that night, delirious with pain, and absolutely mad with rage. His left arm was fractured, and blistered with burned skin, his right arm branded with a red hot iron, and his back torn by lashes with a cat o' nine tails. He might have died except that Beckett's ship met with misfortune of it's own, and Jack was able to escape from the brig by dumb luck.

Beckett's ship was attacked by, of all things, pirates. Beckett and his crew was able to escape to a nearby island in longboats, but in plundering the ship, the pirate crew found young Captain Sparrow in the brig, near death. And one of the pirates was none other than William Turner. Jack was reunited with his old friend.

But Jack was not the same… he was deathly sick with burns, infection from the wounds on his back, and the fractured arm, and after Bill nursed Jack back to health, Jack was thought to be half mad. He took to pirating quite naturally, and for a while, was as wild and ruthless as they came. He was not a murderer, but was full of so much anger that he learned the trade of piracy with such wild-eyed enthusiasm that even the most seasoned of pirates wondered about the young man. Even Bill worried about Jack, who quickly made a name for himself for his strange ways and his boldness. Jack would fool the hell out of everyone; they would think him a madman, a drunken buffoon, but he swore that he would be smarter than them all. His favorite targets would be ships of the East India Trading Company.

… but rather than get another ship to call his own, he had the utter fearlessness to petition the dreaded Davy Jones. He sold his very soul to the devil to raise his sunken ship, blackened by the fire that took her down - the Wicked Wench had died, and the Black Pearl was born. Also born of fire and fury, the defiance and intense pride that became the trademark of Captain Jack Sparrow was unleashed on the world like the storm that raged on the night that he had been born on his father's ship. If he was a pirate, then he would be the best by God pirate the world had ever seen. He would take all he could… and give nothing back.