A/N: So I'm sorry it's been so long. I know I said I'd post more often but my computer was completely junked and now it's an issue of getting internet hooked up. However, to make up for it I'll post another chapter right after this one! Sound good? Good. So if you could just do me a favor and review that'd be great. Happy reading!

Chapter Three

A Nest of Sparrows

"Jack…Jack!"

Jack's eyes snapped open. He was staring at the ceiling of his sitting room, the bungalow on the hill Jenny had inherited two years ago when her gran had passed away. In the four years since they'd met, Jenny had become Jack's best friend, then lover, then for the past two and a half years she had been his wife.

"Jack, are you alright?" Jenny frowned as she helped him sit up. He blinked and shook his head to clear it.

"Yeah…yeah, I just thought you said…"

"I did." Jack blinked hard again, trying to process the information his wife had just given him.

He reflected on the past four years. How after a year of making port in the tiny Irish village as often as possible he had gone to Jenny's father for permission to marry her. He'd said no; he didn't want an inconstant sea-faring man for his middle child. If Jack wanted Jenny for his wife, he'd have to be coming home to her every night. This had, of course, caused a huge row between Captain Teague and his son. Teague liked Jenny, but was convinced that life as a fisherman (as was Jack's "settling down" plan) would be insufficient to answer the call of the freedom of the sea. They hadn't spoken for three days, until Jack had made it clear that when Captain Teague sailed, he'd be staying no matter how things between them had been left.

Six months later they had married. Captain Teague had come, to Jack's great surprise, and they had lived in relative comfort since. Jenny had mentioned children more than several times, usually after being nudged by friends or family about giving her parents grandchildren, and it always ended in a row. Jenny felt like Jack's not wanting children reflected on her as a wife and lover. He couldn't find the words to explain to her it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with him not wanting to turn out like Captain Teague. He loved his father, but he wanted to be a better dad than his had been. He just didn't know how.

"Pregnant…?"

"Three months, the doctor thinks." A slow grin had spread across her face, a light in her eyes he'd never seen before. The light and grin faded, however, as she studied his expression. "You're not happy," she said softly, tears beginning to well in her eyes. "You still don't want it." She stood and began to turn away.

"No, Jenny!" Jack reached up and caught her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he held firmly as he clambered to his feet. With both hands on her shoulders he turned her to face him. "Now you listen to me, Jennifer Sparrow," Jack said softly, looking her in the eye. "I love you, and I'm gonna love this baby, and the three of us are gonna be a family. I just…it's scary, alright? I'm just…I don't wanna mess 'im up. I can't let our kid turn out like me."

His wife did her best to blink the tears out of her eyes. She sniffled and put a hand to her husband's cheek. "I dunno, I think you turned out pretty alright," Jenny said with a watery half smile. Jack closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against her palm.

"Aye, and it took the love of a good woman to get me there, instead of like my pirate father."

"Yeah, well…our baby won't have a pirate father, huh?" She smiled and Jack grinned back.

"S'pose not, eh?"

"It's a boy, Jack." Jenny's chest still heaved, sweat plastered curls of hair to her cheeks and forehead. Her eyes, though tired, shone with triumph. Clutched to her chest was a brand-new, tiny little human. It—he—seemed so impossibly small and fragile in his wife's arms. Mrs. Sparrow, for her part, had hardly ever been more gorgeous in Jack's eyes. And she had always been gorgeous to him.

"A boy?" Jack repeated softly, stepping into the room. "I have a son?" For four hours he had been pacing around and outside the house. Sounds of his wife's suffering had filtered through to him, driving him half-mad with worry, and never had Jack been so glad to hear the wail of a child.

"You have a son," Jenny confirmed with a grin. "C'mere, Jack. Come hold your son."

Jack made a small noise of protest, terrified of dropping the baby or somehow holding him wrong. He was so tiny and delicate in his swaddling clothes. But Jack Sparrow looked into his son's eyes and his entire life changed. Gone was the boy who had passed out drunk in Michael Dolan's tavern. This man who had taken his place was determined to love and protect this little boy to whom whatever higher power had decided him fit to be a father. He would do right by his son.

The Sparrows had grown only happier with the addition to their little family. The fishing was good and the tavern's business was good. Jenny still worked there until she was too heavy with child to be quick on her feet, and resumed work once the child was weaned and able to be watched by his grandmother. Little Jonathan Sparrow—named after his father but called John instead of Jack Jr.—was as happy as any child. Happier than some, in fact, since he enjoyed an adoring father, a loving if not somewhat coddling mother, and grandparents who enjoyed spoiling the youngest of their five cumulative grandchildren. At four years old he was delighted to be told he was to have a baby brother or sister to play with.

Sally Sparrow was born premature several months after her brother's fifth birthday. It was touch-and-go for a few weeks, but at last the danger seemed to have passed. And then, at thirteen months old, she fell ill. The next three months were a constant struggle. Sally was constantly on the brink of death, constantly wailing in her anguish, both parents were always irritable from worry and lack of sleep, and John grew more and more troublesome in an effort to regain his parents' attention. The Sparrows' financial burden was eased somewhat by a collection taken up at church, enough for a specialist all the way from Galway, but after the doctors' fees were the medications and travel and numerous other incidentals.

Finally, it seemed, the storm had passed. There was just the issue of Sally's seeming reluctance to walk again after being crib-bound for so long. A few months before her first birthday she had taken her first steps, but now appeared to have never learned at all. Just one more doctor's visit, just his assurance that this set-back was normal and would pass, and they could put this awfulness behind them.

"Paralyzed?" Jack had to grip the back of a chair to keep his knees from buckling. Jenny was outside with the children since John had been getting restless, but now he wished she was in here with him.

"Just her legs," the doctor said, as if that would make everything better. "Mr. Sparrow I've seen this disease before, in cities. It's a cruel sickness that ravages a child's body. Sally's lucky she survived…But I wouldn't have high hopes for her to live much past three."

Jack felt numb. The doctor looked solemn, but not solemn enough in his opinion. Dr. Flannery did not look nearly solemn or contrite enough for just having told Jack Sparrow that his baby would die. That even if his little girl did by some miracle live, she would never walk again. Had he not prayed enough? Had the doctor not tried hard enough? He wanted to shake Flannery and demand that he do more to save the innocent little bird whose life had only just begun. Instead he grabbed his hat and coat, thanked the doctor in a somewhat choked voice, and joined his family outside.

"Well?" Mrs. Sparrow looked expectant, that everything was fine, Sally would make a full recovery. Jack put an arm around her shoulders and rubbed his face, short whiskers on his chin and lip tickling his hand.

"Tell ya later," he murmured, taking his son's tiny hand with his free hand.

Jenny grew cold. Anything Jack couldn't say in front of their son wasn't good news. Indeed, after John had gone to bed and Sally finally coerced into sleep, he sat with her on their bed and broke the news as gently and in as controlled a voice as he could manage. Jack had already done his grieving while Jenny was making dinner, in the back yard where he couldn't be seen from the kitchen window. His wife was a strong woman, but she would need him to be the strong one this time and he saw in an instant that he was right. Her sobs were muffled in his shirt as he held her, dry-eyed.

"Mummy?"

Jack looked over his wife's head at their son in the open doorway. From one hand, dangling by a flipper was a stuffed sea turtle stitched together from quilting scraps. From Jack's chest came the sounds of Jenny sniffling and trying to compose herself but she didn't look up.

"Mummy's not feelin' good, lad," Jack said quietly. John stood in the doorway, silent. "S'wrong? Bad dream?" He nodded. "C'mere. Maybe if you get a hug from yer mum you'll both feel better."

The boy scuttled across the floor and clambered up onto the bed, helped by his father's strong hand. His mother sniffed again and pulled her tearstained face out of her husband's shirt and gathered her little boy up into her arms and hugged him tightly.

"Oh, sweetheart," Jenny said softly, cuddling her son close.

Little John recounted his nightmare and, as part of a deal that she would then tell why she was crying, Jenny carefully explained. Together she and Jack explained that his sister was still very sick, that he would have to help Mummy now and protect Sally from any neighborhood bullies when she got older. The night was passed as a family. Jack and Jenny fell asleep in their clothes, holding each other. Snuggled between them was John and Scraps the sea turtle, a family united in grief and fear, and a tentative but sparkling glimmer of hope.