A/N: Specifically to Phantom Actress, who asked me to write this! I like requests! This is just a little shortie, one shot. But I hope you'll like it. Just a little brief moment in my apparently by now, "lille series" A Day With The Sparrows.

Disclaimer: I own nothing associated to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. :-)

Summary: One Shot of Jack and Angelica's family-day life. Their daughter announces engagement and Jack is about to go insane.

A Day With The Sparrows III

So how did hell break loose?

"Father, I am going to marry Nick."

That's how.

It was a Saturday morning when most people would enjoy their morning tea, read the newspaper and together share a peaceful moment.

But not at the house of the Sparrows.

"I love him."

Jack is marching through the house. "There will be no wedding here!" He is grumpy, firm and in belief this is nonnegotiable. That his words is law.

The younger version of Angelica has though inherited the perfect blend of stubbornness from not only Angelica, but a wittiness from Jack.

"I don't care what you say."

"I'm just trying to protect you!"

"You're not my hero!"

Now Jack, proud-stomached and middle-aged, swirls around and warningly points a finger to his daughter.

"I hear you say..?"

Angelica, exhausted by this event, stands further away. She has folded arms and leans against a doorframe while viewing the banter. She knew Jack would not take this information well. However she believed he would have suspected this coming after having Nick asking Jack for Maria's hand in marriage, a while ago.

"Screw you!"

Angelica jumps by hearing her angry daughter.

"Screw you thinking you're a captain!"

Angelica can see her husband beginning to boil over and starts to head their way.

"And screw the Pearl!" And off Maria is. "I am marrying Nick, whether you like it or not!"

Jack jumps to head after but Angelica snatches his wrist to restrain him.

"Hey, Querido (Darling), calm down now."

Jack tries to wriggle out of her hold but stops subconsciously gently as he never wants to risk hurting his wife.

"Where is she going?" He grunts upon catching a last glimpse of Maria storming out through the front door.

Angelica massages his wrist with her thumb, smoothly trying to ease his nerves. When he eventually sighs, letting go of the breath he had held, he actually appears defeated.

"What happened to… 'Daddy'?"

Now Angelica sneaks up to hug him from behind, burying her face into his back. Lovingly.

"When did I become 'Father'? And even, 'Screw you, Father'," Jack speaks. "I used to be her best friend, her hero. Her 'Daddy'."

Even if Angelica in some sense can feel the crack in his heart, she smiles warmly and nudges his back with her nose as she tightens her embrace around him.

"You'll always be that, Jack."

If they would see further ahead of these coming fights, wedding disputes and difficulty in accepting Maria's coming adulthood - even the married Sparrows would know they would reach that moment when everything would fall into place again.

A time when Maria called Jack 'hero'.

Hide and seek. What a fun little game.

Maria running around in her early years, together with neighbor kids. All well-dressed, ribbons in hair and the boys wore berets. When it is another girl's turn to count, Maria takes the opportunity and runs further away. She faces this grand tree and mischievously throws a glance around her to scan the area. Nobody sees.

So she climbs up in the tree.

She climbs and she stays.

She waits and she waits.

She will never get found. Never. She will be the master of hide and seek. This is fun.

Until it is not so funny anymore.

She tries to peek but almost looses balance. It feels as half the day has passed. From what she can glimpse among the branches and leaves, is a sunset. Surely her friends should have found her by now.

What if she never gets found?

Carefully she tries to take a step downwards but almost slips again. Scared to death she tightens her grip around she branch she sits on.

Someone must help her. Her worry arises in her.

But it is nothing compared to her mother's. Who has stormed in and out of the house several times already.

"Jack, she has been gone for hours."

Jack is still in his office room, a map unfolded across his desk. He has an old book of myths beside him, trying to solve a mystery that may lead to a grander treasure. He has almost solved this but Angelica keeps interrupting him with her worried expression.

At last it is sunset when she storms inside. "The neighbors haven't seen her since hours aback."

Jack immediately jumps out of his seat, grabs Maria's favorite teddy bear and joins Angelica outside. A few servants approach them, and the maid who has searched with Angelica looks equally worried as Angelica herself.

"Maria needs to be found, now," Jack says and throws his coat over his shoulders. Angelica is about to head out again when Jack hinders her.

"Stay inside, Luv."

Angelica looks at him questioningly. "Jack, it's my daught…"

He gestures to the approaching dark clouds. "Lit the fireplace, aye? She may be cold when I return with her."

With that he leaves. There is a bit of a fuss at the neighbor's. Many of whom have begun to search for her. Some more pretending and instead let their servants do the real search. Jack truly does not care. He just needs to find her before it begins to rain.

Perhaps he spoke too quickly.

If raining is a comment, it pours down. It is as if the sky has opened up and is welling out everything it has carried across all oceans. Jack pulls his coat over his head as he hurries his steps around the houses and overly large gardens. She must be somewhere around.

He is about to leave a garden when he stops by a shimmering sight.

His compass.

Below a tree.

Immediately he stops tracks.

Maria.

In another case, he would probably scold her a bit for stealing it. He has been looking for this compass for weeks! But now, nothing more can be relieving than this find. He approaches the tree and quickly puts the compass in his pocket.

"Daddy!"

He sees her up there. Terrified. Shaking. She looks cold.

"Maria."

"Daddy, I can't come down!" she sniffs. Another one could find it hard to tell if it is the rain making her face wet, but Jack knows she probably has been crying for a long time.

"I'm so sorry, sweetness." Guilt washes through him. He holds his arms out and gestures for her to jump.

"Jump. I'll catch ye, darlin'."

For the slightest moment, Maria hesitates. But then she leaps right into his embrace. He swiftly catches her and hugs her tightly to him.

His little girl.

Maria hugs his throat so desperately he may choke.

But he would not mind.

He would never mind.

He hands her the teddy bear which she quickly cuddles.

When a few begins to notice that he found her, they aim to join him. Although he is fast to gesture for some space as he continues his way home.

The gates to his estate has probably never felt so welcoming as during that moment. His home. Their home.

The servants begin to hurry to his aid as soon as he enters their sight. Angelica, covered by the roof of the outdoor porch, has thrown a shawl around her shoulder. She barely knows if she freezes from the chillier climate or if it a reaction of longing for her daughter.

A breath of relief escapes her when she sees them. Unconsciously she drops it and runs over to them. Maria is quickly over in her embrace and Angelica has probably never hugged her any harder than she does.

"Ay, niña mía, never scare me like that again."

Jack gently guides his wife towards the porch and a few servants are quick to come with blankets for the girl.

One could think Maria would be weeping. Crying her eyes out for abandonment and pull a bit of a drama princess event.

But no.

She is smiling broadly. Grinning even. A few missing teeth is visible but she has probably never been happier.

"Mommy, Daddy saved me."

"Sí, he did huh," Angelica looks to Jack. "Where was she?"

"Up in a tree. Couldn't come down."

"And a hero," Maria goes on happily. Praising her father for all she cares. "Daddy is a hero, Mommy."

And what a night it had been.

For once they had stayed up late, all three bunkering up in his office in fornt of the fireplace. Angelica laying softly between his legs, with a leaning back over his upper body as he partly got support from a nearby couch and pillows. His hand kept caressing her soft spots around her neck while Maria would force them to read fairytale books.

Probably the best of all. Not only had Maria praised Jack to the moon and back for being a hero, he could tell it glowed in Angelica as well. But he waited carefully until a maid had come to bring Maria to bed for the night.

And by that time, his massage on his wife had already worked her up.

"All the times she called you a hero," Angelica almost whispers and spins Jack around. She keeps the intimate embrace though she carefully forces him with her body against a nearby wall. "Do you remember that time when you found her in that tree?"

Jack smiles wryly. "'Course."

"¿Recuerdas cómo terminamos la noche?" She purrs. Her eyelids lowers somewhat and her lips part.

He does not know if he is more absorbed by her native tongue or her seductive expression screaming for him to take her. He leans backwards into the wall and separates his legs to bring her closer. His hands begin to finger a bit desperately at the top of her skirt.

"Hmm..?" He mumbles.

She clears her throat and stands on her toes to reach closer to his ear, her lips brushing against his cheek. "You remember how the evening ended?"

But compared to a few years aback, the child, or rather - children, are not such tiny oblivious Sparrows that never came in the way of Jack's tactics on his wife.

Oh, no.

That is a bliss that has passed by.

"Oh dear lord."

Edward is standing in the doorway and covers his eyes with his hands. "My eyes! My eyes!"

Jack's hands which is firmly groping his wife's bottom while she herself has a steady hold of the back of his head, keeping him in place as they highly intimately make out - is not the most appropriate position to find a person's parents in.

"For God's sake. This is disgusting!" Edward is about to puke. "Mother? Father?!"

Angelica immediately backs away from Jack, ashamed for what her son has witnessed but glad they never went further.

"Oh, Edward-cariño. It's not what you…"

"Dis-gus-ting. Ew. This is what you do when we are in the house?" Edward makes a grimace and leaves. They can still hear him now from the entrance room. "Dis-gus-ting!"

Angelica aims to take a step in her son's direction when Jack stops her. He pulls her back to him. "He won't come back now."

It wins a smile on her face and he can lean down again to claim her lips.

"Mommy, Edward told me you had a surprise for me…" Tom's words die as he too freezes in the doorway, staring at his parents. Realizing his older brother only tricked him inside to destroy his mental image of his parents.

"What are you doing?" His innocent voice asks.

Again, Angelica and Jack pull away from each other. This time, way more reluctantly than before. Jack fights to get out of his daze and so does she.

"Albert the butler is buying you whatever you want in town, honey." Angelica bribes anything to get rid of Tom, and he is off as quickly as he appeared.

Before she has time to inhale, Jack has again pushed her back in his grip and now he is hungrier for her than ever.

"I'm a terrible mother," Angelica whines between kisses. "They'll never forgive me up there."

Jack can only agree to the latter. "Not for what you're about to do." He needs to get her upstairs right now.

"Daddy I want to..," Maria begins but silences upon the sight. She whispers the rest. "Apologize."

She closes her mouth. Slowly it forms into a closed smile.

She, contrary from her siblings, decides not to interrupt and instead takes a deep breath. Slowly she leaves and glances down to the teddy bear in her hands. It is only mere words for herself, in the most silent voice, but it makes her calm regardless.

"Because you'll always be my hero..," she smiles. "Daddy."

The End

A/N: Hope you liked it. Jack and Angelica will always be my greatest OTP. Feel free to leave a review or PM me if you like to see more of these, or just what you think of my writing. Like it/Hate it (as I used to write back in the days). :-) I always want to grow as a writer, perhaps I have changed my style of writing if we look back at my earliest work? Some of you have followed me for years, and I appreciate you readers more than you can imagine.

Together we have Jackelica as OTP, and hopefully 'they' will bring her back ;) Wish you the best! Until next time!