Young Will (PotC)

[storypaint]

Comm: fandom20
Words: 1208
Title: Young Will
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Will/Elizabeth, Elizabeth/Jack
Spoilers: AWE, of course.
Disclaimer: "Pirates of the Caribbean" is not my property. This fanfic is a derivative of canon material that is not my property. I do not profit from these writings. The opinions and actions expressed in these stories are not necessarily the views and beliefs of the original author or me.

Author's Note: This is set directly after the Easter Egg scene at the very end of "At World's End." I know that the writers of the movie have stated that after ten years that Will Turner's burden is over. I don't see why that's true. There's no canon scenes supporting that idea. They just wanted a happy ending. I don't believe in that happy ending. So it's just like the curse says-- one day on land to ten years at sea.

Excerpt: "Are you a pirate?" he blurted suddenly, in a voice oddly high for a boy his age. "Jack says so."

"Come say hello to your father, Will," Elizabeth coaxed. The child retucked his hair under his cap and muttered something shyly. Elizabeth turned back to look into Will's eyes, worried that his child's reaction would upset him, but Will tucked his arm tighter around his bride and laughed.

"We don't have a lot of time here, little one. Come let your father get a good look at you," he said. The child stepped forward, lifting his eyes briefly. He had Will Turner's eyes, and the captain counted that a blessing, but there was something oddly familiar in his smile, in the fluid way he moved. Like the boy was emulating someone familiar.

Will crept close enough that his father set his hand on his cap, and he didn't flinch, looking up with the curiousity he had initially tried to hide.

"Are you a pirate?" he blurted suddenly, in a voice oddly high for a boy his age. "Jack says so."

The look on Will's face was utterly betrayed. He released his wife and for the first time smelled the sea in her hair-- it was carefully arranged, but all the same, there was salt in it.

"Wilhemenia, we talked about this," Elizabeth said gently, not daring to look at her husband as his "son" removed his cap and revealed a feminine face. Young Wil scowled and it was her mother's familiar scowl.

Will Turner turned his face away, feeling old. Feeling lost. Feeling betrayed.

Damn you, Jack Sparrow, he thought, and he wouldn't have known he'd said it aloud but for Elizabeth's carefully hushed gasp.

*

She wouldn't raise Wilhemenia as she had been raised, in a world of propriety and corsets and expectations. She'd broken free of that world. When Jack had shown up in the Pearl a week after Will had gone back to the sea, she hadn't hesitated to come aboard.

There was sea salt in her blood now and sometimes she dreamed of being the Pirate King and sometimes she dreamed of her husband and ten long long oh so long years. Will got further from her mind as time passed. She couldn't help it. She wanted to remember him just as he had left-- for thus would he return. In ten long years. And then in ten more. It was so long.

Sometimes she thought that she loved Will and Jack both and it made her feel selfish.

*

Sometimes Elizabeth wondered if this was the right thing, to teach her daughter to walk on the rolling sea, to let her grow up in breeches, climbing like a monkey through the rigging. Jack filled the girl's head full of stories she was much too young for, but he wouldn't let her call him Dad. For this, Elizabeth was grateful.

When Jack was really drunk, sometimes he'd "promote" Elizabeth to second-in-command, and if she was really drunk too, she'd give the b'sun ridiculous orders until she staggered off to bed, half-supported by the first-in-command.

Elizabeth didn't like to drink, not really. The alcohol burned as it slid down her windpipe and it clouded her thoughts. Or maybe she did like it. It was much harder to feel guilty about her husband when the world was blurred away.

She only slept with Jack Sparrow when she was drunk. To be specific, "drunk as a skunk," as she would call out, roaring with laughter.

Their lovemaking was confused and quick and full of missteps and her giggling. Jack never said that he liked her giggling the most. He would simply wake in the morning with his usual pounding headache and stagger to his feet, looking instinctively for the rum. As he wandered out of her chamber he'd mutter something about how it would never work out.

On those nights, Ragetti looked after Wil. She liked to play with his eye. B'sun taught her how to wood-polish and she carefully worked all of the splinters out. Sometimes if she got really bored, she'd climb the rigging and hide the eye somewhere. She liked seeing Ragetti try to get it back, and it wasn't like Mom would let her into their cabin again that night.

*

Wilhemenia was ten and wearing breeches and she wanted to captain the Black Pearl when she grew up. It had sounded more reasonable on the ship. Elizabeth found herself cowering, hating her husband's disapproval, hating this one day a year when she was her husband's wife and not First Mate Turner.

"She is my daughter. She is being raised well," she insisted weakly as they watched their daughter play in the surf, running a stick along the shoreline in the hopes of catching sea crabs. A muscle in Will's jaw tightened.

"She's Jack's daughter," he said. "And she isn't being raised at all. She's running wild."

"I told her about you," Elizabeth said after a moment. "All the time. She wanted to meet you."

"I am much too boring for her tastes," Will replied, and his eyes were hard.

*

The sun began to set and Will went back to his ship. Wilhemenia wasn't allowed into their cabin that night, even though Jack wasn't in there with her mother. Jack sat with her a while and thought about trying to explain, but gave it up as a bad job.

"If you'll fetch my rum, I'll tell you a story," Jack said to her instead. That was good enough.

*

When Captain Turner of the Flying Dutchman stepped onto the land for the second time in as many decades, there was no one there to greet him.

"My wife can't give me one day every ten years?" he said angrily, throwing up his hands. He whirled around in anger but a tall figure appeared on the rise of the hill above him. Wil was thin and lithe, her dark hair cropped short, and she was wearing a tri-cornered hat.

"Mom didn't want to come," she said.

"Of course not," he said, sighing. There was an awkward silence as Will looked his legacy up and down. She seemed to sense his disapproval, but she didn't know how to correct it. This was the person she was. She wouldn't be anyone else. She didn't know how.

She took off her hat and ran a hand through her crew cut. Then she put her hat back on and drew herself up as she walked down to meet her father. He watched her approach, saying nothing.

"Father, are you a pirate?" Wil asked hesitantly. "Jack still says so sometimes, you know."

Will Turner scowled horribly.

"I'm sorry," Wil whispered in his ear, "but I am."

Cold steel plunged suddenly between his ribs. After a moment, he dropped to the ground, eyes still wide with shock. Wil looked down at her father with an odd tenderness. She reached into her pocket, whistling a terribly tune, and pulled out a small wooden ball carved to look like an eye. She tossed it up in the air and caught it once. Its original owner had been dead for six years. She didn't get to play with him anymore.

She took a deep breath, inhaling land air for a last time, and then climbed into the dinghy, taking up the oars.