Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom

vengeance. He’d seen the Keeper shoot Code-breakers in the head
with no more emotion than he’d show when cracking a louse, or
crushing a roach. To Teague, the Code was not only the Law, it was
everything. To have someone with whom he had a personal
connection—no matter how strained—turn traitor and Code-breaker
must have been doubly infuriating.
But it had been five years since those days in Shipwreck Cove,
and Christophe’s betrayal. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he thought of the
rogue pirate. The morning he’d awakened aboard La Vipère with a
lump behind his ear the size of a hen’s egg, and sickly realized he was
leagues from Shipwreck Island and Esmeralda, had been a very bad
awakening indeed. One he preferred not to remember.
Five years is a long time, especially for a pirate. “A short life but
a merry one,” and all that rot. I’m a respectable merchant sailor now,
a captain. I doubt many from Shipwreck Cove would even recognize
me today.
He smiled, remembering that night with Esmeralda aboard
Venganza, and how she had nearly stripped him naked—well, actually,
she had done that, but this was before they’d wound up in her big bed
—and how she’d gone on about how he didn’t look like “her Jack”
anymore. She was absolutely right. Jack Sparrow didn’t look like a
pirate anymore, and that was intentional. If he stayed away from certain
haunts in Port Royal, or any one of a number of pirate hangouts, and
gave Tortuga a wide berth, the chances that anyone would recognize
him and attempt to drag him back to Shipwreck Cove to face the
Keeper of the Code were slim to none.
So why are all these bloody memories plaguing me, then? It
isn’t like me to moon around, summoning up the past. Jack scowled.
Tia Dalma would probably say it was “destiny” coming full circle, or
something of that sort. What’s that stuff the Hindoos go on about?
Karma, that’s it.
He snorted. Karma, destiny…despite his respect for the Obeah
woman, he didn’t think he believed in either. He believed in Jack
Sparrow, Captain Jack Sparrow, thank-you-very-much, and that was
the sum total of it, make no mistake.