3rd Person's POV

The Interceptor cuts across the waves. Jack at the wheel as Will sharpens his sword with a whetstone.

"For a man whose made an industry of avoiding boats, you're a quick study." Jack says glancing at the younger boy.

"I worked passage from England as a cabin. After my mother passed, I came out here... looking for my father."

Jack tried to act nonchalant as he gazed out at the sea, "Is that so?"

Will frowns knowing Jack was hiding something, "My father. William Turner?"

Jack says nothing. Will has lost his patience for guile.

"I'm not a simpleton.  At the jail-- it was only after you learned my name that you agreed to help me. Since that's what I wanted, I didn't press the matter.  But now-- You knew my father."

Jack considers his reply and settles on truth, "I knew him. Probably one of the few he knew him as William Turner. Most everyone just called him Bill, or 'Bootstrap' Bill."

Will frowns, "Bootstrap?"

Jack nods, "Good man. Good pirate. And clever-- I never met anyone with as clever a mind and hands as him. When you were puzzling out that cell door, it was like seeing his twin."

Will stands angry, "That's not true."

Jack sighs and walks over to Will, "I swear, you look just like him."

"It's not true my father was a pirate." Will shakes his head not believing the pirate.

Jack turns away from the angry boy and shrugs, "Figured you wouldn't want to hear it."

"He was a merchant marine! He was a respectable man who obeyed the law, and followed the rules--"

Jack laughs. This reminded him of Catalina. Her father was the same. Said he was in the navy only to end up a pirate. She never knew and she would've never believed it either. Just like the young boy.

"You think your father is the only man who ever lived the Glasgow life, telling folk one thing, and then going off to do another? There's quite a few who come here, hoping to amass enough swag to ease the burdens of respectable life. And they're all 'merchant marines.'"

Will's anger rises higher, "My father did not think of my mother-- his family-- as a burden."

"Sure-- because he could always go pirating."

"My father was not a pirate!" Will's sword is out, levelled at Jack.

Jack gives him a disbelieving look, sighs, "Put it away, Will. It's not worth getting beat again."

"You didn't beat me. You ignored the rule of engagement. In a fair fight, I'd kill you."

Jack shrugs once more, "Then that's not much incentive for me to fight fair, is it?"

He kicks a lever on a wench. The sail boom whips around and slams Will in the chest, sweeping him off the ship. His sword clatters onto the deck. Will dangles above the water. Jack slips a loop of rope around the wheel to hold the course.

"As long as you're just hanging there, pay attention. Must, should, do, don't, shall, shall not-- those are just mere suggestions. There are only two absolute rules."

Jack ticks them off on his fingers, "What a man can do. And what a man can't do."

Will looks away, not interested.

"For instance: you can accept that your father was a pirate and still a good man... or you can't. Now me, I can sail this ship to Tortuga, by myself..."

Will looks alarmed.

"But I can't just let you drown."

Jack swings the boom back in. Will drops to the deck. Jack holds the hilt of the sword out. Will takes it. He glares at Jack as he considers what he'll do next. Jack watches him coolly.

Will turns and strides to his spot on the deck, sits down, and resumes sharpening his sword. Jack breathes a silent sigh of relief.

"Tortuga?" Will asks as he looks out at the ocean.

"Aye Tortuga."

A dank and dirty port, where the tides seem to have swept together the sum of the Caribbean pirates, privateers, prostitutes, theives, and drunkards.

With its cantered, rotting docks, weatherbeaten buildings, and odd assortment of livestock running free a donkey, chickens, etc. It is far less civilized than Port Royal.

Jack and Will move through the crowd. A redheaded woman turns her head, she has noticed Jack.

"We need a crew. We can manage the ship between islands, but the open sea, that's another matter--"

Suddenly a redhead comes up "Scarlett!" Jack smiles.

SLAP!

Without another word she walks away.

Jack frowns, "Not sure I deserved that."

A blonde woman with a very revealing dress makes her way to the two. She stands in front of Jack with a frown.

"Giselle..."

She smiles and nods her head to the girl who just disappeared, "Who was she?"

Jack stammers with an answer so the girl proceeds to slap Jack, hard. Satisfied, she turns and strides off.

"I may have deserved that."

Will nods and the two continue on to find Jack'a quartermaster.

A drunken man lays in the mud between two pigs, sleeping. He wears an old tattered Navy jacket. A sudden spray of water splashes across his face, revealing Joshamee Gibbs. He sputters and roars:

"Curse you for breathing, you slack- jawed idiot." He recognizes Jack, "Mother's love, Jack, you know better than to wake a man when he's sleeping.  It's bad luck!"

"Well, fortunately, I know how to counter it.  The man who did the waking buys the man who was
sleeping a drink, and the man who was sleeping it drinks it while listening to a proposition."

"Aye, that'll about do it."

Jack helps Gibbs to his feet and then Gibbs is hit with a second wave of water. Will stands there with the bucket.

"Blast it, I'm already awake!"

"I know.  That was for the smell."

Later Jack and Gibbs sit at a table in the shadows, a single candle illumining them, speaking in hushed voices. Will is away from them, at the door, hand on sword, keeping a look-out.

A tankard is set down. Gibbs lifts it to take a swig—

"Just the one." Jack replies.

Gibbs pauses. He takes a dainty sip.

"Make it last, then.  Now, what's the nature of this venture of yours?"

"First-- have you found me a crew?"

Gibbs frowns, "Oh, there's a hard tale, Jack. Most of the decent pirates in town won't sail with you, seem to think you're a jinx."

"Now where, I wonder, would they have gotten that idea?"

Gibbs evades answering him by taking a long sip. Jack leans forward. Gibbs leans forward.

"I'm going after the Black Pearl."

Gibbs straightens up like he's been hit. He stares. He reaches for the drink as if to down it but then sets it back down. He leans forward again. Jack has not moved.

"Say again?"

"I'm going after the Black Pearl. I know where it's going to be, and I'm going to take it."

"Jack, it's a fool's errand: You've heard the tales they tell about the Pearl."

"Aye, and that's why I know where it's going to be, and that's why I know what Barbossa is up to.  All I need is a crew."

Gibbs shakes his head, "A fool's errand."

"Not if the fool has something Barbossa wants. Something he needs."

"And you've got that, have you?"

Jack smiles enigmatically, and shifts his eyes behind him. Will, still on guard, glares at a sailor away near the table.

"Back there, guarding the door is the son of old Bootstrap Bill Turner."

Gibbs' eyes widen over the edge of the tankard and peers at Will. Then he smiles, with more missing teeth than good ones.

"Well, lookee there. I'll allow you may be onto something, Jack. There's bound to be sailors on this rock crazy as you. I'll find some men."

Gibbs downs the drink, slams the tankard on the table. Will reacts to the sound, draws both sword and dagger, kicks over a table for cover, and whirls on anyone who moves.

Gibbs frowns, "Kid's a bit of a stick, isn't he?"

Jack nods, "That he is."