"Not All Treasure is Silver and Gold"
Chapter 3
Jack only slept for an hour or so. The sun had started to come up when he crawled into bed and was still coming up when he crawled out. He was edgy. He didn't know what was different, but something definitely was.
Dani kissed him good-bye when she found him on deck. He stopped his pacing to look at her.
"Where are you going this early?" he asked, his voice rough.
"To find someone to put the name on the ship."
"Oh," he said and looked back towards the horizon.
Dani walked off towards town and returned a short while later with a man and some silver paint.
The man worked quickly and was very good at his job. It was great. She paid the man and climbed back onboard to wait for the crew.
The bleary-eyed crew assembled at the docks at noon, just as they were instructed. But they couldn't be called sober. Of course, sober wasn't an expressed requirement. They blinked into the bright sun and Cotton's parrot snored softly on his shoulder.
Jack was still pacing, but now it was in front of his crew on the dock. Jack then began to shout orders. The crew scrambled and completed their tasks. The ship was completely stocked and ready in two hours.
By three in the afternoon, they had cast off. It was truly a beautiful sight. The crew was home.
Jack called a meeting that night.
"Okay, men," Jack shouted.
"Ahem?" Dani smiled.
"And woman," Jack added.
"Thank you."
"We are going to find something. Something that many others have searched for. That no one has been able to find and would be very, very valuable to have ourselves?"
"Treasure!" Pintel shouted.
"Of sorts."
Dani grabbed Jack's arm. What were they going after?
"We are going to find the Fountain of Youth."
The whole crew smiled. They were going to find immortality without the pesky side effects of undead-ness.
"Where should we go?"
"Well, Ponce de Leon, the fool, failed to find it in Florida."
"So I suppose we'll be scratching that off our lists?" Dani asked.
"I heard a rumor. That it is on an island in the Caribbean. It could be false, but I intend to research it."
"Jack Sparrow, doing research?"
"Yes. Is that so hard to believe?"
"Yes!" The crew answered in unison.
"Jack, can I talk to you? In private?" Dani asked, pulling on his arm.
He sighed and allowed himself be pulled into their cabin. He sat on the edge of the bed while she blocked his exit.
"Jack, I realize that you run things around here and that you decide where we go, I have no problem with this, but why the Fountain of Youth?"
"Because, Dani, for the first time in my life I'm feeling extremely…mortal. I'm, no we, are on the threshold of something new. I've been shot, stabbed, eaten, but I've never been…a father…to my knowledge."
Dani leaned back against the doorframe for support.
"Father? You want to be a father?"
"Yes."
"But how does the Fountain of Youth play into all of this?"
"I'm not exactly a young man anymore, Dani. I want to be around, if and when, I do, in fact, become a father."
"Jack Sparrow, there isn't anything I would rather do than to make you happy. And if making you a father makes you happy, then I will do it."
"You do not know how happy that would make me."
"I was scared to tell you that I…"
"I saw you at dinner that night."
"What?"
"How you looked at Elizabeth's stomach? How you had discussed the pregnancy with her? Just the tone of your voice alerted me."
"Oh," Dani sighed as she walked closer to him and stood between his knees.
"I knew the time was right at that precise moment."
"Jack Sparrow, the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow, wants to have a child? I'm astonished."
"No more astonished than I am, love," he said as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. "No more than I am."
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A/N: Okay, shorter than I have been writing lately. Please don't be upset. Please review! I LOVE reviews! (Drinks all around if I get some reviews…those that don't will be clapped in irons. Or not. Do you really want to test me?)