Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean is the property of Disney and any and all others who can claim copyright. No profit is made from the publishing of this story, and no copyright infringement is in any way intended.
Author's Notes: A quick PotC oneshot I whipped up for the December 3rd prompt in the Christmas Prompts Calendar taking place between myself and another talented author who calls herself Miasen. My prompt was as follows; Let's leave Norway and the cold for a day (Yes, please!). Today you'll be writing about Jack Sparrow! (Pardon me, Captain Jack Sparrow). This night he is standing on his beloved Black Pearl and staring out over the sea.
Based on that, this little scene is what I came up with in the space of one evening. It takes place approximately twenty years after the end of AWE.

He watched as the golden orb that was the sun dove into the sea, seemingly setting both the heavens and the earth on fire. How many sunsets had he seen? He did not know. Did not really want to know either, for each sunset equalled another day lived, another day spent.

It felt like his days had caught up with him now. It was not so easy anymore to ignore the lines his reflection showed had been carved into his face over the years. And with the lines, a strange kind of sadness had come over him. His thoughts went back almost twenty years, to a time when he had sat in a little dingy in the middle of the ocean, his compass and a very special map in front of him and a bottle of rum at his side, feeling like the master of all the seas. How easy everything had been then, how simple all his dilemmas had seemed. "Take what you can, and give nothing back" had been the very words by which he lived. They still were, but he could not help but think they sounded less glorious now than they had in his youth.

He looked down and smiled, for in front of him on the quarterdeck sat the very same compass that had guided him then, together with a very different bottle of rum. But neither the compass nor the rum could camouflage the fact that a good twenty years had passed.

His reflection was no longer that of a dashing rogue, but a grizzled pirate. His braids were long gone, cut off in preparation of a punishment that had almost made an end to the famous Captain Jack Sparrow, and by now replaced with a mane of greying hair. The trophies he had collected were much fewer in numbers now, and the ladies of the night in Tortuga and elsewhere no longer counted on him for the better part of their business.

There was still one of them he saw regularly, or as regularly as the life of a pirate would allow. They had met for the first time more than thirty years ago, and developed a deep friendship which sometimes morphed into a night of romance and passion. She was one of the few who knew that there was more to Jack Sparrow than a pirate on constant lookout for treasure, rum and women. She knew that there was a man behind that, who sometimes questioned himself if he had made a good decision turning to piracy.

She was the only one to whom he had admitted the fact that the Sea was sometimes more of a mistress than he could handle, and that he sometimes wondered what his life could have been had he not turned to piracy.

His many days spent chasing treasure had been a worthwhile endeavour for the most part, but every once in a while the question of "What if?" crept up on him. If he had done what so many others did; kept quiet and transported cargo from one port to another his life could have been a lot more comfortable. He had to admit, compared to what he had experienced during a long life as a pirate; it looked like a bleak life. But, he thought, a bleak life might have had some advantages too. A steady income, for example. Nothing like the hoards he had come upon during his stint in piracy, but steady…and honest. An honest income would have secured him a normal existence, perhaps even wife and children.

A normal existence…what kind of man was he to want that? A rebel, a charmer and a rogue – a pirate. Besides, he knew of only one woman who would concede to marry him if he asked her, and he knew he never would. Because both of them knew that in reality there was only one woman in Jack Sparrows life, one constant whom he would love all of his days, and her name was The Black Pearl.

He looked down on his compass. The needle had been spinning around aimlessly for days, but now it stood rock steady, pointing northwest. He looked at the horizon in the direction of the needle, and a sudden, familiar urge gripped him. He knew it well, from so many days in the past chasing after hidden treasures. He could not explain it; he never had been able to. He only knew that it was life. To seek and find what had been long forgotten by others, not to rest until he found what it was he sought. The satisfaction was unlike anything he ever felt, and ever would feel. And he could not let it go.

Gingerly he got up, drained the bottle of rum and tossed it away, calling out to his Fist Mate;

"Mr. Gibbs!"

A grey-haired, white-bearded Joshamee Gibbs quickly appeared from bellow deck.

"Aye, Capt'n."

"We have our heading."

As the deck below came to life, readying the Pearl for new adventures, Jack Sparrow looked out over the sea and whispered the same words he had spoken for every new treasure he sought.

Now, bring me that horizon…