The Little Sparrow's Tale
Chapter Six: Of the Past and Fickel Love
Disclaimer: We wished we owned Captain Jack Sparrow but we'll just settle for the movies and products with his image instead. DIsney owns it all.
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The sun was high, the weather a bit hotter then normal and on the decks of the Pearl things seems to be very...awkward.
Well, to be honest, awkward was the understatement of the century. Gibbs stood by the side of the ship, watching on as David stood from his kneeling position on the deck, kicking aside the bucket of water and soap. He turned to the helm to confront Jack. David was now beyond pissed which was another understatement.
"I have done everything you told me to do Sparrow." David announced coldly, his light blue eyes narrowing in great dislike. Jack did not turn from the wheel just waved a vague hand at David.
"Ah yes but it's what I shouldn't be telling you to do that you should be doing. And it's Captain Sparrow. Now get back to work." Jack ordered pointing back down to the deck.
It could be said David would have shot Jack then and there had it not been for Ace, who calmly walked up to David and placed a placating hand on his shoulder.
"David why don't you go and take a break and know that we appreciate the work you do." Ace offered delicately.
"No we don't." Jack retorted and Ace took a deep breath.
"I do this for your mother boy." David said his temper in check. Ace nodded.
"I am sure she will appreciate you not stooping to my father's childish level and for keeping out of trouble." With that Ace let David go and turned to his sister.
Looking at Ace and Amberly, the elder pirate Gibbs saw a look of humor on the young woman's face. Her brother however, glared in her direction (which did nothing to stop the humorous gleam in her smile and eyes) before walking up to the helm where their father stood. Gibbs got a little closer to hear the conversation.
"Will you please concentrate dad. Torturing him for no reason is getting everyone else aggravated." Ace explained irritably rubbing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose hoping relieve the headache pain.
Jack looked sideways at his son, a funny smile on his face. "I enjoy it."
"I'm sure you do father. You enjoy anything that is sure to cause everyone else pain. Can you just stop thinking about how you can cause discomfort and think about the task at hand?" Ace asked coldly, Jack returned his now mirthless gaze to the sea.
Gibbs saw the smile leave Jack's face and as if on cue Amberly rushed up the stairs to defend her father who could care less what is thought about him.
"Ace, leave him alone! He's the Captain anyway, if you want to do things your way mutiny! Then I would beat you at an un-fair fight and throw you in the brig. Which then your wife would become very angry with me and we were getting along so well." Amberly said once again rambling as she does.
By now there was a small crowd around Gibbs, all looking up at the three Sparrows.
"I don't know why you defend him all the time! You think everything he says is true! I mean look at you, hair with beads, eyes with kohl, you drink non stop you are just a copy of him! Yet, you're the one who wrote to me all the terrible things that he did and I warned you what he could be like. I remember a lot more then you do!" Ace accused her and Amberly folded her arms across her chest and stood a little taller.
"I am no copy of father the beads are souvenirs of adventures we have had and I was angry; I say and write things I don't mean when I'm angry." She said and looked at her father who was looking out at sea, seemingly not paying attention to anything or anyone, including his crew.
"At least you have the decency to say you're sorry or try to make up for what you've done. I've never seen one ounce of remorse from him at the things he said and told mum." Ace continued with the morality of their father.
Jack was getting fidgety and Gibbs could see the tension in his dark brown eyes.
"Like what! He never said he wished anyone in our family was dead! He most likely thought that if he did it would come true. Doesn't that show he has some good feelings toward us?" Amberly shot back, at this time Victoria had emerged from the cabin and now joined the on-looking crew. It occurred to her she had never seen her husband that angry before.
"What about when he said 'I wish they were never born?'" Ace uncharacteristically shouted at his little sister.
"When we get to Port Royal we'll leave them with my father. There is no reason for them to know yet." Elizabeth said quietly to Jack who was sitting at the large table that was his desk.
"No need for you to come along either. I'll just leave all three of you there. I'm sure you can find something to do with your time." Jack said a little sarcastically.
"No. We need time to think this over. Which one of our children will be going with you and which will be coming with me, after all two innocents should not have to suffer for the sins of the two guilty ones."
Jack sighed and looked at his compass before throwing it on the ground as it spun wildly in all directions. Elizabeth picked it up and the motions didn't stop.
"I don't care, take them both." Jack answered taking a swig of rum, Elizabeth snapped the compass shut and looked to him.
The woman sitting across the desk from him was now angry. Elizabeth's face was red and her eyes were wide. "What do you mean you don't care? They are your children too. Don't you want to see them? Watch them grow? Thank God we had two of them. I'm not sure what I would do if it was just Ace."
"It would be better if we didn't have any." Jack said his dark and cold eyes now looking at the map he was leaning over.
"I don't believe you. What happened to you Jack? Has your mind totally changed on all matters of living? You love your kids. You wanted nothing more then to make them happy. Now ever since you've been with Ana-Maria they don't mean anything to you." Elizabeth asked slightly amazed at Jack's lie and still very angry.
"She is not the cause for my change of heart, as you so carefully put it." Jack answered, his voice turning cold.
"Then what is?" Elizabeth asked sighing.
"You are." Jack put it simply as if telling her it was going to rain.
Elizabeth was silent for a moment. "I am? What the hell is that supposed to mean? What have I done?"
"What you did Elizabeth was turn me into something I never wanted to be. I wish my children were never born. There, happy now? I wish that I could live my life without thinking about other people. I don't care if they're mine. If you want them you take them." Jack yelled slamming his rum bottle on the table and turning away from Elizabeth.
Tears were falling down Elizabeth's face now. "I don't understand. Ace is your son, you named him after he pulled the card from your sleeve the day he was born, there was nothing in the world that you cared about more. Then when Amberly came she was your little shadow, she followed you everywhere and you never let anyone else hold her when she was tiny, afraid she would break." Elizabeth let the tears fall but she held back from sobbing. The dam had broken and now she was sure there was no going back. "You cried when they were born."
Jack looked up at this a scowl on his face. "I did not cry."
"Yes you did I saw you! I woke up to find you holding Ace and talking to him. When he opened his eyes to look at you, you cried Jack." Elizabeth said through clenched teeth.
Jack looked back to his map. "You're mistaken."
Elizabeth then stormed out of the cabin and completely missed her son who was hiding under the helm stairs.
There was nothing else said and the little boy named Ace, who had heard his parents conversation, had his heart broken.
"That is what I heard that night Amberly, father is not the man you think he is." Ace finished his story and no one had moved from their spots.
"You liar, daddy would never say something like that, right daddy." Amberly turned to her father to see he turned to her with his out his smile and looked into her eyes.
"Of course not, Amberly." Jack answered stoically and that is when she knew he was lying. Whenever her father was stoic it means he is lying or deeply troubled also he never called her Amberly...he always said a pet name for her.
"Oh...oh I see..."Amberly trailed off turning back to her brother she put on a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. "Well you know love is a fickle thing."
"I pity you Amberly if that is what you truly believe." Ace spat and pushed past the crew and went to the Cabin his wife followed. Amberly turned back to her father.
"Daddy?" her father turned to her and for a moment she saw something akin to regret in his eyes, but then again, it might have been the light.
"Yes love?"
"Did you mean it when you said it that you did not want us?" She asked leaning against the railing and taking a drink of the rum she had been holding since the argument began. Jack sighed.
"At the time of the argument I meant every word my pirate lass." Jack answered truthfully. Amberly nodded then passed the bottle to the still on looking Gibbs and wiped the kohl from her eyes with her shirt sleeve and then took her pocket knife and cut off a small accent braid that held the souvenir of blue stone. The stone was her favorite story of her father's earlier adventures. He had given the small souvenir to her if she promised never to ask him to tell the story again, she asked for the story anyway and he would tell it to her.
"I won't need this any more and after this father I think we shall be parting ways." Amberly gave him a slight bow and then left vanishing to most likely the galley for something to do. Jack himself held the braid and trinket in his hand. He knew he had truly screwed up and there was no way to fix it.
"Gibbs, take over." Jack ordered then went to go and talk to his son.
Ace was sitting at his father's desk watching the compass spin in circles then stop in the direction of his mother's supposed location. He snapped the compass with a resounding click and finally looked up to his wife who had been sitting across from him waiting for him to calm down.
"I meant what I said earlier." Ace answered her unasked question and she rolled her eyes.
"No you did not. I know you well enough Ace you don't hate him." Victoria said picking up the compass and watched as it pointed in Ace's direction then spin around for another desire to find.
"Yes I do he is a vile man he hurt my mother more then anything and that is why I hate him...he is despicable and rude and..."
"A pirate." Victoria finished for him. Ace nodded and Victoria's stood and from behind wrapped her arms around Ace's neck.
"He does love you Ace, fathers are just never good at showing that part of them, don't hate him for it." She sighed into his tawny hair. She always did think he had the most beautiful hair color.
"No it's not that he does not love he just loves the wrong things, rum, ship and countless women that he does not remember." Ace reflectivity answered taking comfort from his wife.
"If that were true boy, ye would not know me unless it was from word of mouth." Jack answered flippantly, strolling into his cabin and taking a seat at the edge of his desk. "Might I have a word alone with ye son."
Ace could tell it was not a question by the glint in his father's dark kohl rimmed eyes it was not a request.
Jack sat opposite his son and watched as Ace gave a small nod to Victoria who gave him a soft kiss before leaving the cabin. It was odd seeing his son happily married while Jack himself stayed unhappily married all these years a felt a twinge of regret for it. He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts.
The pirate captain couldn't come up with anything to say. He didn't know how to begin to talk to his son, his daughter usually did the conversations for him, now he was at a loss for words . All of his years on the sea and world knowledge and he was never prepared for fatherhood. Thinking back on it when Elizabeth had come to him, a worried expression on her face to tell him she was pregnant with the boy in front of him now, Jack had known what she was going to say before she said a word and felt the color drain from his face. Jack pushed the memory away.
"Well?" Ace inquired rather harshly once they were alone and his father had yet to speak.
The word cut through the silence and Jack looked at his son now, focusing on him rather then the pealing wood behind him.
"I want to tell you a story." Jack started, thinking that if he made his life with Elizabeth and his children like a fictional story it would be easier to tell and maybe get to the point he was trying to make.
"Oh joy, I feel great excitement all ready." Ace responded deadpanned, Ace sat back, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He listened none the less, nodding his head for his father to continue.
"A long while ago, long before you were born, I found myself drifting into the docks of Port Royal by complete chance and I met some homely looking navy men who couldn't swim." He stopped at this point, his brain not wanting to put forth the memories that used to haunt him of why he had even gone to Port Royal in the first place. "We had been chatting about the time I had been made chief of a strange group of people, anyway, a woman had fallen into the bay and it was obvious she was in need of some assistance..."
Ace interrupted his father at this point. "Mum knows how to swim."
Jack retuned his comment with an icy glare he really did hate to be interrupted when he was telling a tale.
"Just listen to the story boy, and don't interrupt unless you want me to start back at the beginning." Jack said and his son grew quiet, crossing his strong arms over his and pouting slightly the way his mother does when she does not get her way. Jack continued ignoring the resurfacing memories threatening to over come him like a wave does the sand.
"Like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted be my own flesh and blood, she looked like she was in trouble, so being the good man that I am, don't roll your eyes son, I jumped into the water to save her. When I was able to get her on the deck it was plain to see that the damnable corset women find so fashionable was the enemy. I took it off her and she opened her eyes to look at me." The pirate didn't realize the small smile that was coming to his face. "She had small droplet earrings on, her big brown eyes looked interested, not afraid. It's hard to recall a time your mother was afraid. So, before I could say much to her I had a sword pointed at my throat, owned by your dear old father-in-law."
Ace watched as his father thought about what happened next, a sly smile came to the elders face and a soft one to the son.
"After some very interesting events that involved your mother getting rather close, I made my expert escape and found myself in the shop of a blacksmith. Now there was a boy named William Turner, remember that name because it will be important later. We fought and I won of course, he seemed to have a problem with me threatening the fair Miss Swann." Another pause. Jack put up his hand in order to stop the questions he could tell were just aching to be asked from his son.
"Sometime after that I escaped prison and joined forces with this young, inexperienced young man and went to rescue your mother from Captain Barbossa and his cursed crew. She was grateful to me of course and the lovely couple couldn't bare to see me hang. Again, my near death by a short drop and sudden stop authorized by your father in law."
"Wait dad. First, how did you get caught and two, was mum in love with this guy Will? Another thing I think mum would have mentioned this to me before." Ace argued, he had no clue how his father's story was addressing anything that had happened on deck that day, but the details of his father's story were very intriguing and he could help but be taken in.
Jack didn't seem to want to answer either question. "Didn't I tell you not to interrupt?"
Ace nodded and sat back, realizing he had leaned forward to listen to his father's tale.
"Damn it, I told my self I was not going to believe the tale, he was always good at telling stories" Ace thought sourly but returned his attention to his father.
"After I had left your mum with Will Tuner, me and the crew had went back to the Isle de Murte but it had sunk into the water, bad luck that. Moving ahead a year or two I had gotten myself in a bit of a spot and required the distractions of William Turner yet again. Now, he had come because Elizabeth had been sentenced to death because she had willingly helped me. He wanted me to help him, luckily there was something in it for me." Jack smiled, his gold teeth all a flash and his eyes sparkled with greedy mirth.
Ace nodded assuredly. "Mum."
"No, no, my boy, he was going to take my place on the Flying Dutchman." Jack said waving off his son's guess and Ace's eyes went comically wide.
"Alright that's enough," Ace said standing up from his seat and moving past his father a little, "I've heard quite enough dad. The Flying Dutchman? The ship of Davy Jones? If you're going to tell a story you can at least make it somewhat believable." Ace said, acidly. His father pointed to the chair and Ace despite being old enough now to ignore his father's unvoiced order, had to follow the captain of the ship, so he sat back down glaring at his father.
"It's the whole truth. Now, as I was saying, your mother had her own ideas and escaped and found me. We went on an adventure of sorts to save her dear William. So in answer to your previous question she was in love with the whelp. At least that's what she claimed. A year or two after that we met again and somehow wound up in a bunk together. I think there was a large amount of rum."
"Please don't tell me that's how I was conceived." Ace said, hoping his parents weren't together simply because of him.
Jack's face looked happy for the first time in a while. "No. You weren't until a year or so later. However, that one night caused Mr. Turner to get a little rash. He commandeered his own ship and headed for the horizon. I haven't heard one thing of him since."
There was silence for a while and Ace wondered what that story had to do with anything.
"Is that all?"
Jack looked perplexed. "Yes."
"What is that supposed to prove father?" Ace asked confused, this was worse then one of his sister's ramblings.
Jack couldn't look his son in the eyes at the next thing he said. "I lov…lov..."Ace pinched the bridge of his nose, he knew what his father was trying to say.
"You loved..." Ace answered for his father and Jack snapped his fingers and pointed at his son.
"Yes that's the word, your mother. You and Amberly too. Still do as a matter of fact." The father mimicked his son's earlier actions, Jack sighed and pinched the bridge of his own nose. "There were many times when I thought I would wake up and you would all be gone. It was a stupid thing. Until all I had left was your sister, now because of my own stupidity I don't even have her."
Ace didn't feel any pity towards his father, it was a word he never wanted to use even near the context of describing his father yet this honest answer from his father prompted his next question that he did not consider the consequences of asking it. "And that thought of truly losing all of us, doesn't that make you want to change?"
"Wanting to is one thing Ace," Jack said tiredly his words seem to strain to Ace. "Being able to is another."
Miles away, back at Port Royal, Admiral James Norrington despite having a stern look about his fine features was happy and was currently overseeing the readying of his ships to go look for his daughter and her husband.
If truth be told he was more then happy, he was ecstatic. The reason for his elevated mood was that his prediction regarding that Ace Sparrow had come to pass, the young Sparrow had broken his promise to stay on the island with his daughter once they were married, not to mention to keep her away from anything to do with pirates.
If one thing was for certain the Sparrow bloodline could not ignore the call of the sea for long. He breathed in the deep sea air from the deck waiting as the last of the previsions were loaded on board. He promised to himself that when he did find them, Sparrow would go straight to the gallows no matter if his daughter hated him. It would be for her own good and she would know that someday. Now all he had to do was find a fine man to remarry her to. A smile graced his lips before he ordered to set sail in the direction the Black Pearl was last seen.