Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates of the Caribbean, its story and characters, is owned by Walt Disney Pictures.
Warnings: AU, Mpreg, Drama, Angst Author's Notes: Slight spoilers for Dead Man's Chest, but nothing major since this story takes place five years after the events of the trilogy (also, no spoilers for PotC 3 either).

Chapter One

Jack needed a sword. The one that he had been carrying for years, much like him, was starting to show its age and lose its luster. The blade didn't cut like it used to and it was starting to rust. Then one day, during a raid on a merchant vessel, the damn thing actually broke! That settled it in his mind. He would have to get a new one and although it would have been easier to just steal one, for some reason Jack felt like just getting one made for him. Maybe he'd "forget" to pay the smith for his services afterwards.

Jack had given the order to make birth at the nearest port they could find and allowed the crew to go on shore leave while he searched the town for a decent sword smith. As soon as he had stepped into the town, he was instantly greeted by questioning looks and frightened whispers and the pirate knew instantly that this wasn't a pirate friendly port. He didn't mind really, he had always enjoyed the attention that his appearance and mannerisms granted him and even with a broken sword on his belt, he was still feeling quite confident in himself.

His search was interrupted, however, when he felt something small and wooden being pressed against his the back of his leg. Jack paused in his quest at the feeling. He knew instantly that there was no threat involved in the gesture, he could tell right away that it was a young child that had come up to him. He was merely surprised that some young whelp had actually dared to come up to him. Most children knew right away from the sight of him that he was a pirate and stayed as far from him as possible, but this one...

"Avast pirate!" a small voice cried, poking him even harder with the wooden object. "What brings the likes o' ye ta my port?"

Oh dear lord, just what he needed, a young whelp who thinks that he can take him on. With a loud exaggerated sigh, he turned around and looked down at the kid, ready to scare the boy straight, but stopped dead when he got a good look at him.

Standing there before him was the spitting image of William Turner. From the tips of the boy's golden brown curls, to the way he held his little wooden sword in his hand. Even the way his brow was furrowed looked just like Will!

Jack hadn't seen Will Turner in years and the two hadn't exactly parted ways in the best of terms. The last time Jack had spoken with the young blacksmith, the whelp had all but spat at him he was so furious. The pirate had seen the hate glowing in his brown eyes and felt it radiating from his body. Jack could still clearly remember their last conversation and the fact that Will was convinced that Jack had tried to steal his fiancée. It wasn't true of course. Jack had no real interest in Elizabeth Swann. Of course the young woman was easy on the eyes, but the pirate had his sights set on other things at the time.

Last Jack had heard of Will, the boy had gone back to Port Royal, not to marry Elizabeth, but to gather his belongings before disappearing completely. Jack had considered looking for him, but he knew that the lad wouldn't want to see him again anyway.

The pirate felt his jaw fall open as the boy continued to stare him down. "Avast!" the boy repeated, waving his wooden sword menacingly.

Jack frowned, shaking his head slowly. This couldn't be Will's child! He was too old! The lad looked as if he were five or six years old and Will had disappeared five years ago. He would have had to act quickly in order to father a child this age. It was pure coincidence that this kid looked so familiar.

Bending down, Jack grasped the boy by the wrist, stopping the child's assault on his leg. "Now dat's not very nice," Jack chided, flashing his gold teeth at the boy and playing up his pirate speech to almost comical proportion. It may seem silly to adults, but it was frightening to children. "Is dat how ye go 'bout greetin' everyone ye meet?"

The child, however, seemed unaffected by the man's act as he frowned up at him stubbornly. "You're not 'everyone' you're a pirate," the boy countered.

Jack had to laugh. Normally, he didn't care much for children, but this whelp certainly was amusing. "Can't deny that," Jack said.

"Unhand me!" he cried dramatically, waving his sword around threateningly. Jack was starting to wonder if the boy thought that he was playing along with him or not. "Or I'll see ye hung by the day's end!"

"Dear lord!" Jack gasped playfully. "Now, I'm truly frightened. But if I let ye go, then ye'll have me hung anyway."

The boy frowned, seeing Jack's point, he then leaned forward, and whispered "I'm not really going to hang you Mister. It's just a game."

It took everything Jack had in him to keep from laughing at the boy's words. "I didn' realize," Jack whispered back as he let go of the child's wrist. "Ye played the part of pirate hunter quite convincingly."

This seemed to please the boy greatly, as he puffed out his chest with pride and tucked his sword away in his belt. "Thank you!" he said happily. "But I don't really want to hunt pirates, I want to be a pirate. Don't tell my Daddy though, he hates pirates."

Jack felt his ears perk up at that comment. "What's yer name lad?"

"Nathan!" Jack frowned as a young woman came running towards the young boy in front of him. She quickly gathered the child into her arms in alarm and fright, making sure to keep him a good distance away from Jack. "Don't wander away from me like that! You gave me such a fright!"

"I wasn't doing anything wrong!" the boy, Nathan, frowned, kicking the air wildly as he struggled to get free. "Let go! I can walk!"

The woman frowned as she placed him back down on the ground, but continued to drag the boy away. It was clear from the displeased frown on Nathan's face that he didn't like the woman and from the brief glimpse Jack caught of her, he could tell they weren't related since they looked nothing alike.

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Jack had spent the rest of his search for a decent sword smith thinking of Will Turner and the boy who seemed to look so much like him. He walked around the small town in a haze, as he mentally compared the image of the young boy and the blacksmith. As far as Jack could tell, the only difference between the two were their eyes. Will's eyes were a rich chocolate brown, while the child's eyes were much darker, almost black in appearance. It was obvious that the lad had gotten that trait from his mother, whoever she was. It certainly wasn't the woman who had dragged him away. She looked nothing like the child. She was pretty enough, with her sandy brown hair and grayish green eyes, but there was a plainness about her that did not match the child's appearance.

Jack groaned, shaking his head fiercely in an attempt to erase the thoughts in his head. What was he thinking? Just because the child looked a bit like Will didn't mean that this was necessarily Will's son. The boy's father or mother could have had similar features, or the combination of both could have produced an offspring that just happened to resemble Will.

"Don't tell my Daddy though, he hates pirates."

Coincidence! It was merely a coincidence! A lot of people hated pirates after all.

I need a drink, Jack sighed. He felt like washing the idea of Will out of his mind. He had to admit that the thought of seeing Will Turner again brought a smile to his face and a strange feeling in his chest. He wasn't exactly sure what would come out of a meeting with the younger man, but just to see him alive and well again would make him feel... better. For some reason he had the feeling that Will had been in some type of danger since Jack was no longer there to look after the whelp and keep him from doing stupid things from time to time, but he had to remind himself that Will was a grown man now and could properly look after himself.

The pirate stopped short in slight surprise when he realized that he had wandered over to a smithy. He squinted as he looked at the name hanging above the door. Hobbs's Smithy was all it said. Jack frowned as he reached down and felt the hilt of his sword. He wondered if they made blades anywhere near as good as Will Turner's.

With a reluctant sigh, Jack entered the small shop, bracing himself for the pounding in his head that would result from listening to the clang of metal on metal, a sound that was already painfully clear from the other side of the door. Sure enough, once he set foot inside, his ears began to ring and his head pound as the man in front of him worked the hot metal in his hands.

Jack surveyed the shop with a weary eye. Kettles, pots, and other such goods fashioned from metal were on display around the forge, but none of them looked like anything remarkable. He was slightly disheartened to find that there weren't any swords on display. Perhaps he should just go back out and forget about the order he was about to place.

He didn't even get the chance to turn and leave when the young smith put down his project and turned to greet him. "How can I help you?" he was about to say, but his words faded away somewhere after "can" when his eyes locked with the pirate standing in front of him.