Hi there,

the wave of Caribbean nostalgia on social media made me write this.

I'm ignoring film 5 just as it ignored the previous canon, so take that, Disney!

Maybe this story might entertain someone, I hope it will. There's a cover as well as a ton of pins by now, so if you're interested, just look for 'lasdalias' on Pinterest - and if you're not running away yet, enjoy reading.

xx
Dalia

Love and hate.
No other feelings could capture as accurately what she felt for him, creating the ultimate paradox that would vex her years later just as much as back then.

Hate for all his innocent ignorance. For all the innocence he'd taken from her. For the way he'd broken her heart again and again, carelessly and yet with so much passion.
But above all she hated him for the five years she had to look into the eyes of his children who'd never seen him themselves.

She felt love as well – but mostly for what he had surprisingly left her with. While he set sails towards the horizon just like he always did, she'd soon found herself all alone with a responsibility she had never seen coming.

She loved his twins, with all her heart. So much so that she could only pray to make up for their father's absence with her own embraces.

Love and hate …
It was nothing more, nothing less.
For the very man who had passed on his pitch-black eyes to their children. Her son's mischievous grin was a constant reminder of him. Their daughter, on the other hand, would always question supposedly unimportant details, just as he used to as saintly as he could.

The element of surprise was never that far away with two little sparrows – being always up to mischief literally ran in their blood.

Sparrow …
They were a lot like him.

And chirpy birds could never be caught, just like smoke couldn't be held – Tara knew it when she met Jack, still she fell in love.

And he could love, too.
He loved the sea. It had always been tightly interwoven with his life – anchored in his blood and his roots, since birth. Seeing the light of day during a raging typhoon on a ship had tied his soul closer to the ocean than to the mainland. And how would anyone give up on the freedom that a keel and a hull and a deck and sails could symbolize?

She never quite knew what it was with him.
Sober he couldn't walk straight, even among outlaws he fought bad blood and had debts in every harbour – as Pirate Lord of the Caribbean he was mostly a Captain without a ship.

Unwilling to take the dirty orders of the East India Trading Company as an honourable man, as a Pirate just a tad too decent to actually be ruthless.
His ever so confusing words clouded him in a veil, but once the fog would clear and his arguments actually sank in, it would make quite a lot of sense.

However by then, he was already gone.

The eternal contradictions he united in himself made him unpredictable. Madness and brilliance. Mania and prodigy …

No situation was ever too hopeless, he pulled his head out of the noose every time – but also, no happiness in the world was ever lasting for him.

One thing was certain, though. The legends were all incorrect and true at the same time.

You would always remember the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow. Just like the day he left you again – taking that boundless freedom with him like the salty scent of the sea when the wind shifted once more.

Also trouble followed him wherever he went – and yet it was Tara whose world had been turned upside-down.

The way he'd hesitated when they said their last Goodbye once again was suspiciously atypical. As though he'd been struggling with himself, too, back when he'd kissed her for the very last time. His lips touched hers not briefly at all, and he seemed quite lost, almost too loving.
It made their farewell just more confusing when he left.

His searching gaze kept haunting her, even days later, and in retrospect Tara knew he was torn.

As though he hadn't lied to her again. As if he'd been faithful and trustworthy, and only failed to admit it out of sheer force of habit, throwing a good thing away in fear of eventually having something to lose …

Yet none of it mattered anymore. Moments later he had disappeared out of her life, until this very day. She'd let him go, a second time, she watched him sail away once again as they just couldn't make it work despite all efforts – just like everyone who knew them had prophesied.

She stayed in Tortuga, he left for the world. Not as cold and indifferent as the first time, quite the opposite – but still. He left her behind.

Not only her, though.
The nausea was an indication that Tara deliberately chose not to acknowledge at first. But while she still cried for him, her clothes fit tighter by the day, and hence a bittersweet certainty solidified.
It was soon undeniable. And it couldn't just be one child …

How she was to care for a kid was a mystery to her, but two of them with half of Sparrow's nature seemed like an impossible, daring challenge. She was on her own with nothing but a tiny, crumbling townhouse in Tortuga that her parents had left her after their passing. Dilapidated as it was, she could make no profit from it – at most never-ending work or even a revenge murder after selling it …

She had desperately thought of all possible solutions. Everyone knew someone in Tortuga who knew someone … She would have risked her life in the process, but it would have been a way out.

However, not what she really wanted. It seemed like a touch of destiny after all …

Still she couldn't survive that future on her own. Sailing across the Caribbean on a ship other than his own and almost pregnant to term was therefore certainly never what she had in mind, but necessity was the mother of invention. The journey was dangerous and above all exhausting, but eventually she arrived where she suspected at least his father.

Edward Teague.
Keeper of the Code, and also a former Pirate Lord and Captain. A well-known member of the society of outlaws, almost untouchable. And Shipwreck Cove at his feet – as those who could command respect among pirates deserved it.

She had felt like a stranger and was set for denial of every kind when she docked where Jack had probably spent much of his childhood. Yet when he saw her, Teague had no doubts. He even knew her name, or at least guessed correctly …

"Tara?" he'd asked with a vague smile. "Had a feeling I'd once meet you …"

She didn't know what exactly he was trying to imply then, and the rage and her helplessness at the course her life was about to take was still too immediate to dwell on. But when her children were finally born in agony and hope, Teague revealed it to her.

His son had mentioned her, in a pub in London, just after he'd fled the palace of the King of England.

Tara hadn't asked for more details – Sparrow found himself in apparently hopeless, highly absurd traps far too often. Only to defy the handcuffs or the gallows in the end, as though he could perform magic …

But as Teague held his newborn grandson in his arms right next to her bed, stoic and yet hopelessly in love, he added a few thoughts. With abundant larmoyance, probably because Edward, too, had never been the father his son actually would've needed …

"Jackie lives for the sea and the freedom it brings," he mumbled as the little sparrow in his arm reached out in limitless trust. "Your name, however, dear …" He'd give her a warm smile while she was still breathing heavily with her daughter in her arms, recovering from the strain of childbirth. "Didn't pass his lips easily, your name. Bloody unusual, I thought. Jackie doesn't like to spill any beans."

She nodded, well aware of that.

"But Gibbs loves to." Teague winked. "You know Josh Gibbs?"

She found herself nodding yet again, and so he continued. "Always understood him better than he did himself. Jackie never wanted to admit it, but it's true. Gibbs told me about an evening not too long ago, just before his nirvana."

"The Locker took a toll on him …" Tara sighed in cynical exhaustion, and yet she gave his daughter a gentle kiss on the forehead as she did so.

"Aye!" Teague leaned back in his old rattan chair with the child in his arms. "After Davy Jones had gotten him he was undoubtedly even more cranky … The heat and the lack of wind in the Locker are not good for the mind, you know. And too much time to ponder over every single life decision is a nightmare anyway … Well, you see – they were with Tia Dalma. Calypso … Whatever you wish to call her." Teague told the story, but not just to her. He looked down at his grandson and immediately it seemed like there was just a bit more to the world. "Her shack was full of voodoo utensils and magical objects, an altogether interesting place. As interesting and dangerous as it gets. Tia Dalma always knew what she was doing. The people in the swamps loved her and appreciated her advice. Only Jackie's always been too foolish to follow it. The compass of hers, however, that he'd taken. All too willingly, always carried it with him. The old thingie pointed to what you desired most in this world …" Teague looked up, speaking directly to Tara again. "That's why they didn't find what they had to be looking for, even then. A lot of time wasted, you know …"

"Why?" Tara asked, and he seemed to be just waiting for it.

"Because he didn't know what he wanted …" Teague grinned at her. "Gibbs realised that pretty quickly – and at some point I think even my stubborn son had to admit it. He couldn't find the key to Davy Jones' chest because it wasn't what he wanted most in this world. The key would've been the most reasonable desire, certainly so – but the heart isn't always reasonable."

"It's not," Tara said under her breath, motioning Teague to continue.

"His time was running out, and as tempting as eternal life had always seemed to him – a hundred years aboard the Dutchman was something Jackie wanted to avoid at all cost. But Jones hadn't resurrected the Wicked Wench from the depths for him for nothing. He wanted a soul. Thirteen years can pass rather quickly …" Teague chuckled, then, with the child close to him, he inched a bit more to her bed again, adding, "And yet even the severity of this situation didn't make him concentrate. I guess he had to realise he missed you." He nodded at Tara as she refused to believe him. "According to Gibbs, Tia Dalma could literally smell his indecision. She asked if her compass couldn't lead him to Davy Jones' key. He just answered evasively, he's damn good at that – and the crew, Gibbs included, didn't get what Tia Dalma and him were talking about. Jack Sparrow does not know what he wants. Or do you know, but are loath to claim it for your own." Teague smirked at the little fingers that wanted to close around his hand, but undeterred he continued. "That certainly got to Jackie … Right afterwards, Tia asked what might vex all men. And after plenty of stupid guesses provided by the crew, Jack gave the answer. A woman …" Almost like a proud father, Edward glanced at his grandchildren and then Tara. "Hard to believe, ain't it? But true. Words from his own mouth, despite him claiming religiously that his first and only love has always been the sea … Tia Dalma's question was answered. He fell in love, those were her words with a wink to Jack, according to Gibbs."

"Hardly true," Tara protested in her same old lethargy concerning Jack, "otherwise he wouldn't have most successfully repressed it yet again." She couldn't help it, quite wistfully she looked at her daughter's little face. His daughter's … "He never looked back."

"Oh, he did," Teague immediately corrected. "Gibbs testified to it when we met."

"When was that?"

"In London, too."

"Well …" Tara sighed in wary disbelief. "So tell me then – where is he now, Edward?"

She could barely hold back her tears due to the old bitter pain those revelations fueled once more. Not even for her sake, but for her children who well deserved a father.

"Excellent question, my dear," Teague admitted, gently stroking the head of the newborn on his lap. "You know – he's probably out there doing something extraordinarily … stupid …"

She felt like crying, but he made her laugh. Teague would do so often during the following years, despite the circumstances, and yet they never spoke of Jack again.

No, he shone with absence, and it wasn't even his fault. She would never be able to blame him. After all, he had no clue that he'd become a father – and even if rumours could sail just as far as sailors, Jack was at home in the world. If he wasn't in Singapore, he might be in Marrakesh. If he wasn't in London, he might have spent weeks on the Playas of Mexico. If he wasn't impersonating a British or Spanish Royal Navy officer, or even a Clergyman, he was probably haunted by triple curses …

He was nowhere and everywhere, nobody and everybody, looking for the fountain of youth and always on the run from all his sins. He never followed rules – guidelines, at most.

He wasn't there. Teague, on the other hand, was.
And so he became not only the father Tara no longer had, but also a father figure to her children. The Cove was the ideal refuge. Drinking, dancing, smoking and forgetting, smuggling and shooting was daily business – but at the end of the day, the people there were at least honest about their flaws.

Tia and James – named after the stories of Calypso and Norrington, simply to commemorate those legends and to annoy Jack if he ever met his twins – didn't grow up exactly overprotected there. But at least they didn't have to get by with only Tara on Tortuga. Where not even the Code was given much attention due to nobody enforcing it with such seriousness as Teague did in the stronghold of piracy.
No, she was safest where Jack's father had his way.

And yet Tara sensed that it was the one place in the world that Jack would avoid like the devil holy water. It was accordingly almost perfidious to bring up his children there. Jack preferred to see his father from a distance – where Teague was, he would not be.

At least that's what she believed for quite some years …