Disclaimer – Disney owns the entire franchise of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Challenge prompt from the forum – Family. I am doing a series of short stand-alone drabbles on the theme and all to do with pirates and family.

Some corrections made.

All in the Family

1. Reunion

From behind a gorse bush, Jack Sparrow watches as the rowboat makes landfall. Elizabeth and her nine-year-old son, William Turner III, wait for the two men who step onto the sand. Young William sprints across the sand to greet his beloved grandfather, almost knocking Bootstrap into the surf. Elizabeth, older now, but lovely as ever, embraces Will, showering him with her kisses after his long sojourn at sea. Ten years is a long time, matey. One night on land for ten years at sea captaining the Flying Dutchman. Let the Turners make the most of their reunion. The old pirate slinks off like a cat into the night without the Turners being aware of him ever being there. Will and Lizzie wouldn't want a smelly old pirate about their house tonight. Jack has no waiting wife or child to greet him on any homecoming, only the Black Pearl and the sea under her hull.

2. Daughter

Angelica. An unlikely name for one of his blood, yet strangely apt. A pirate strains to hear her sing. She is a lone voice among the choir who sing at the glided cathedral at Madrid. She has an angel's voice. It is not for God's forgiveness or his soul's salvation that he has come here to sit among the faithful sheep. A glimpse perhaps, of her as the holy sisters usher them from the choir stalls away to the cloistered convent next door. Soon he will take to the waves again and leave his unacknowledged daughter behind. Did her deserted mother speak to her of him? Perhaps she hates him, the blackguard father she never knew. One day, perhaps when she is older. They will sail the ocean together sacking Spanish ships for their gold. One day, perhaps… Nay, pirates do not have daughters to love. The pirate swears it will be the last time he calls. Perhaps…

3. Memory

He dreads the inevitable loss. Young William and his dear Mary. Would he be able to recall their faces tomorrow? How the dimples show in his beloved wife's chin when she looks up from darning his socks and smiles at him with unrestrained tenderness? How the boy greets him at the docks with enthusiastic hugs whenever he returns from sea? Faint memories. Flickering candles. A little smidgen of hope, something to hold on to. Do Mary and their boy wait in vain at the dockside now? Had they quietly accepted his death and moved on? Already the edges are fraying…

"Git back to work!" The lash of the whip doesn't cut as much as it used to. The barnacles saw to that. The crewman bends to his work before the Flying Dutchman's mainmast. Part of the crew. Part of the ship… Part of the crew. Part of the ship…

4. Prodigal Son

"Hullo, da."

For a crazy moment, Teague feels like smacking his son in the streets. Jack Sparrow, thirty going on forty, pirate to the core. And always pushing his luck. First it was that incident with some snotty slave trader, then Davy Jones and his pet Kraken. Then toss in the fact that he had been mutinied and marooned not once, but twice, his ship stolen from under his nose. Now Teague has to shoot some guy in the street to save his offspring's hide. Whatever does His Highness King of England want with a pirate like Jack Sparrow? Is there any grain of truth to Jack having found the way to the fabled Fountain of Youth? As usual, Jackie boy was in way over the top of his dreadlocked head. Teague knows his son well. Jack will continue pushing his luck as far as Lady Luck cares to smile on him. Twice Teague has received word of his son's demise and twice he had wept tears for his boy, but Jackie boy need not know about those silent tears. Teague has his pride after all.

"Hullo, Jackie boy…" the greeting falls flat. Rum should fix that.

5. Uncle

"Uncle Pintel… I need ta tell ye…" a voice calls out on the dim-lit gun deck.

"Don't call me dat here, Rags. It's Mister Pintel. Better still, Pintel. Hand me that rag."

"Aw, I prefer calling ye Uncle… Me ma is yer second cousin, isn't she? I suppose dat makes us first cousins once removed… or is it second cousins… Do I call ye cousin instead?" Ragetti hesitates before handing the rag over. He knows he should not but forgets why. Pintel wraps it round the end of a broomstick.

"Pintel, Rags. And what's dis ye want ta tell me?" Pintel peers into the open breech of their gun, cleaning away the old powder stains and sulphurous build-up within with his makeshift ramrod. He does not realise until it is too late that the rag had been soaked in highly flammable oils.

"I forget…" Ragetti frowns. It was then that Pintel sees the first smouldering of the old powder residue in the cannon and starts yelling to run for cover…

6. Dearly Beloved

The steep hillside is quiet. It will be quiet after he has gone. Huffing and puffing, a peg-legged mariner struggles to muster up the dignity befitting his new uniform. They all loved the sea and the view from the hilltop is the best all round. He sits on the weathered tombstone nearby to catch his breath. He traces the letters carved in the stone lovingly. They died young, far too young, taken by the pox while he was at sea.

"Like my new clothes?" he asks even if he knows there will be no reply from the beloved dead. In another life, he would be a devoted husband and father, Rosaline and their girls waiting his return by the hearth. Amber poring over a map with her new compass, a future navigator in the making. Mischievous Ruby, the tomboy, eager for his tales of sea monsters and adventure. Opal, baby of the family, just learning to speak. A red gown of fine satin for their mother of course. It isn't fair they should be taken. But then life is never fair. He had been dead once, and would have gladly gone to their side if it weren't for that interfering Tia Dalma.

Would he have died then, burning with the wound-fever? He rubs his stump where the peg leg chafed. In his fevered dreams he thought they stood by his bedside waiting. No, he was a survivor and the phantoms vanished on his recovery. The wind is picking up, his cue to go. He puts the wilted forget-me-nots on the grave. More adventures await him at sea. He turns to leave. A ghostly girlish giggle echoes behind him. "Nice coat, papa," Ruby's voice whispers. "But we prefer the other hat."

Author's Notes:

Turned out kind of angsty for most part.