FIC: Break, Break, Break [Pirates of the Caribbean]
Title: Break, Break, Break
Author: atraphoenix
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Characters: Elizabeth Swann/Jack Sparrow, Calypso and William Turner the Third
Rating: PG
Summary: The sea was coming to claim it's own.
Author's Note: Written for the potcfest.
Break, break, break
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
-- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Elizabeth could have been anyone. Anything.
She was the Pirate King and the horizon was hers to claim as she saw fit.
Or, at least, it should have been.
The third month of her reign was her last. Elizabeth Turner was force to abdicate, abandoning her ‘throne’ in Shipwreck Cove for a tiny cottage far from the citadel.
Only Mistress Ching actually watched her leave. The rest of the Pirate Lords were too interested in the freely flowing alcohol and the crash of the waves on the rocks below. Her lips twitched, briefly, into a smile of pity, before she turned away just as suddenly. The meaning was clear. Piracy was a realm dominated by men. Mistress Ching had spent decades fighting to get them to respect - and fear - her. Elizabeth had been so close to joining her.
Such a waste.
***
At first, Elizabeth was inclined to agree with Mistress Ching. Her stomach grew larger and her temper grew darker, and even the smallest cottage in the world seems vast when you’re living in it all alone.
Relief, however, came to her from a most unexpected source, five months after she left the Brethren Court.
It was a cold night. Unusually cold. She couldn’t begin to imagine who would be calling at this hour, or, indeed, why anyone would be calling at all. The midwife visited once a week, and a boy came round once a day to see to all the jobs Elizabeth was dismayed to find she could no longer handle, but that was all. It was no wonder she was so lonely.
Occasionally, the boy would stay behind to talk to her after his chores had been completed, but it wasn’t the great comfort and privilege he seemed to think it was. He was young and vapidly handsome, completely in love with one of the girls from the village on the other side of the island. She listened to his love struck babbling with derision, and was somewhat alarmed when she eventually realised he was only a little younger than herself. She’d been like that, once. In love and foolish with it. This was where it had led her.
“If he’s planning on telling me another story about something ‘his’ Mary has said, or done, or thought,” Elizabeth muttered to herself as she lumbered across the living room, “I’m going to scream!”
She reached for the latch, and one hand drifted, automatically, to the hilt of the dagger she was now forced to carry in place of a sword. She lacked her former balance and agility, but she was still capable of defending herself. Probably.
Her hand dropped helplessly to her side when she caught sight of the figure outside.
“Jack Sparrow! What are you doing here?”
“Can’t a loyal subject come and pay tribute to his king?” he asked, sweeping off his hat with a flourish, and bowing in such a way that Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m not the Pirate King anymore,” she pointed out, but Jack merely grinned at her.
He didn’t seem to mind.
***
She didn’t ask why he had decided to visit her, or why he decided to stay, and Jack didn’t volunteer the information. Elizabeth knew he must have some sort of ulterior motive, but she couldn’t begin to guess what it was and she was sure she could defeat him when the time finally came. For now, it was nice to have some company.
It didn’t occur to Elizabeth that he might actually care, and that he was staying with her because of loyalty. Or worse, because of …
No. Those thoughts were truly terrifying.
***
“Jack!” he said firmly, proudly, “Good strong name, Jack. Can’t go wrong with it.”
Elizabeth, curled up in an armchair, shook her head and smiled. She was watching him with her hands clasped protectively over her stomach, which was, by all accounts, a rather standard position for pregnant women. Elizabeth couldn’t see why. No one would try and steal their child from them before it was born.
(Afterwards would probably be a different matter.)
“I don’t know,” she said genially, “I rather like the idea of naming him after my father, if it is a boy.”
Jack stared at her for a moment, before spluttering with indignation.
“Weatherby!” he yelped, dropping his bottle of rum with a loud clunk, “You can’t call the child Weatherby!”
“Why not?” Elizabeth smirked.
Jack considered this for a moment before retorting fiercely: “All the other children will pick on him!”
Elizabeth laughed delightedly. At least choosing a potential girl’s name had been easy. Jack had campaigned for Anne - after the infamous Anne Bonney - but the battle hadn’t lasted very long. There was no way Elizabeth would be swayed from naming a daughter after her own mother.
Periodically, Elizabeth wished that Will was here to join in with conversations like this, but then Jack would make a joke or launch into another story, and it was all too easy to forget someone it hurt so much to remember.
His tales of adventure on the high seas made her ache with longing. Although the stories were clearly embellished to impress her, she could still feel the sea spray on her cheeks and the wind tugging at her hair.
She would sigh in sorrow, but it was no good dwelling on her loss. She was becoming terribly practical as her pregnancy advanced. It was no good missing what you could never recreate.
***
The child, when it was finally born, was named William Turner the Third. Elizabeth thought it was appropriate, although Jack did roll his eyes and sulk when she first informed him. He was clearly sore that the ‘whelp’ hadn’t been named after him, and, according, attempted to ignore young William as much as possible during his first month of life.
Elizabeth had been prepared to be furious with him for treating her son - Will’s son! - that way, but soon realised that, whenever her back was turned, he cooed and fussed over the infant as fervently as any of the women who visited from the village.
“You’d make a good father, Jack,” she commented, watching from her favourite armchair as Jack cradled the baby (albeit rather tentatively, as if young William was going to attack at any moment). Her son was nearly five weeks old now, but still able to do very little but gurgle and cry. She could see nothing of herself in the child, and nothing of Will either, for that matter. She wondered if babies were always so dull.
“I’ll settle for being the godfather, Lizzie,” he replied with an immediate shake of his head, but he grinned despite himself, and she couldn’t help but return the smile.
***
“Storm brewing,” said Jack, peering out of the window at the ebony sky outside. The night sky was darkening even further as heavy grey clouds gathered on the horizon. “Sort of night that makes me glad I’m not out at sea …”
Elizabeth stepped up beside him, resting a hand on his arm, determined to savour one of the rare moments they had alone, with William sleeping peacefully - but heavily - in the next room.
“Is there nothing else which makes you glad you’re not out at sea?” she asked. It was a little flirtaceous, naturally, but also a little tentative. She was still waiting for him to spring whatever elaborate plot he’d been concocting over the last few months, but it was getting harder and harder to think like that now. Now she only worried about what she’d do when he left and why he hadn’t already done so.
Jack turned away from the sky and faced her, smiling in a way which she would have considered tender, if she hadn’t known better. It couldn’t be love, but it was better than nothing when she didn’t have the real thing anymore.
He’d protected her from the emptiness of her cottage and now he saved her from the emptiness of her bed.
It couldn’t be love.
“I can think of something, love,” he said, grinning at her with eyes filled with promise. Her heart was racing as painfully as it did when he told her stories of seafaring adventures.
It couldn’t be love.
He turned to face her, but, before they could kiss, the door burst open.
Elizabeth leapt back as if she’d been burned. She knew, with miserable resignation, that it couldn’t be Will, but an image of him standing there, silhouetted against the clouds, flashed through her mind before she could stop it.
“You!” snarled Jack, and the figure in the doorway smiled, stepping into the room before Elizabeth had regained her composure enough to look up.
“Aye, Jack,” Calypso said, slipping seamlessly into the form they were most familiar with, “Me.”
“What do you want here?” Elizabeth asked, stepping up next to Jack. She wasn’t scared, yet, but she was a little unnerved. Tia Dalma had been eerie, rich with power, but the raw energy of the unbound goddess hung heavy in the air of the room. She felt dizzy with it.
“I came to see why two o’ my most loyal subjects have suddenly given up da sea.”
She smiled at them with false sweetness, before her gaze slipped sideways, to the half-closed door of the next room and the cradle within.
“Ah,” she crooned, her smile widening and her eyes glittering, as black as the stormy sky outside. She wasn’t surprised.
Jack followed her gaze to the door, and, when she stepped towards it, stepped swiftly sideways to block her.
“What do you really want, Tia Dalma?” he demanded.
“You know dat is not my name,” she laughed. It was a terrible laugh. There was no humour in it, but there was the power of ice and rain and crashing waves, strong enough to make Elizabeth stagger a little as she joined Jack.
“You don’t know what dat child is, do you?” she cooed, as if talking to a petulant youngster.
“He’s my son,” Elizabeth replied, furious and finally a little scared, but comforted by Jack’s warm presence beside her. He didn’t look afraid. He’d have a plan. He always had a plan, somehow.
Calypso laughed again. “The dead an’ half dead were never meant to get life on da living,” she explained, eyes like coal black pools burning into Elizabeth, “So the Sea, it come to claim it own, before the child can claim more than the sea can hold.”
Her words were as cryptic as anything Calypso had said in the form of Tia Dalma, but one phrase in particular caught Elizabeth’s attention. The sea was coming to claim it's own.
“William is not yours,” she spat, her voice laden with a degree of hatred that Elizabeth hadn’t even realised she possessed. Even Jack looked a little surprised, although he didn’t dare take his eyes off Calypso to look at her.
“Which William?” Calypso enquired gently, “They are both mine, Elizabeth. Body an’ soul, they are mine. You husband, he sail da seas for eternity at my command, an’ your son, my spirit flow through him veins.”
“You’re wrong,” Elizabeth whispered, “Will put his heart in my care. He loves me.”
“But him obey me,” retorted Calypso, her voice crashing into Elizabeth like the tidal wave it echoed. “Even your lover would abandon you at my command.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that, Calypso,” said Jack suddenly. He seemed unwilling to look at Elizabeth as he spoke, but the younger woman was staring at him as if she’d never actually seen him before. Maybe she hadn’t.
Calypso, on the other hand, looked furious.
“You do not mean that,” she snarled, “You are mine, Jack Sparrow. You have always been mine. You gave your soul to the sea many years ago!”
“Aye,” said Jack, gaze slipping, just for a second, to Elizabeth, “But it seems I didn’t give my heart.”
Calypso followed his gaze, eyes burning into Elizabeth for a moment before she looked back at Jack.
“So this is your choice?” she asked, and Jack nodded. Calypso’s eyes darkened, but, a second later, she dipped her head in a barely perceptible nod of her own.
“Curious, isn’t it? Seems I’m a hard man to predict,” Jack said genially, echoing words Barbossa had spoken once, what felt like a whole lifetime ago. Elizabeth felt her heart swelling with pride and affection. Why was he doing this? A good deed, with no real reward, save her gratitude?
It couldn’t be love.
“Very well,” Calypso growled, her voice becoming truly inhuman. She seemed to grow in size as she spoke, filling the doorway, filling the room. Elizabeth grabbed Jack’s hand, and he pulled her behind him automatically, as if he could protect her from the fury of a goddess by sheer strength of will.
“Just remember this - the child is not truly yours, nor is he him father’s. He is mine. The sea is in his blood. One day he will return to me.”
Then she was gone. The door slammed shut behind her, and for a moment the only sound was the soft hiss of the rain outside.
In the next room, little William began to cry.
Elizabeth, still pale and trembling, hurried to tend him, but Jack - admittedly against his better judgment - disappeared out of the front door after Calypso.
The goddess had already reached the sea by the time Jack reached the cliff top, and was several metres out when he skidded to a halt on the sand. The waves were still only lapping at her ankles, even though they should have been at least waist deep there.
“Every sailor returns to you eventually,” he called out, “It doesn’t mean you own them.”
Calypso turned to face him, lips curling up into a cool, humourless smile.
“I hope you know what you are doing, Jack Sparrow. Siding with her.”
“I never do,” he said, with a lopsided grin. “More fun that way.”
Author: atraphoenix
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Characters: Elizabeth Swann/Jack Sparrow, Calypso and William Turner the Third
Rating: PG
Summary: The sea was coming to claim it's own.
Author's Note: Written for the potcfest.
Break, break, break
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
-- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Elizabeth could have been anyone. Anything.
She was the Pirate King and the horizon was hers to claim as she saw fit.
Or, at least, it should have been.
The third month of her reign was her last. Elizabeth Turner was force to abdicate, abandoning her ‘throne’ in Shipwreck Cove for a tiny cottage far from the citadel.
Only Mistress Ching actually watched her leave. The rest of the Pirate Lords were too interested in the freely flowing alcohol and the crash of the waves on the rocks below. Her lips twitched, briefly, into a smile of pity, before she turned away just as suddenly. The meaning was clear. Piracy was a realm dominated by men. Mistress Ching had spent decades fighting to get them to respect - and fear - her. Elizabeth had been so close to joining her.
Such a waste.
***
At first, Elizabeth was inclined to agree with Mistress Ching. Her stomach grew larger and her temper grew darker, and even the smallest cottage in the world seems vast when you’re living in it all alone.
Relief, however, came to her from a most unexpected source, five months after she left the Brethren Court.
It was a cold night. Unusually cold. She couldn’t begin to imagine who would be calling at this hour, or, indeed, why anyone would be calling at all. The midwife visited once a week, and a boy came round once a day to see to all the jobs Elizabeth was dismayed to find she could no longer handle, but that was all. It was no wonder she was so lonely.
Occasionally, the boy would stay behind to talk to her after his chores had been completed, but it wasn’t the great comfort and privilege he seemed to think it was. He was young and vapidly handsome, completely in love with one of the girls from the village on the other side of the island. She listened to his love struck babbling with derision, and was somewhat alarmed when she eventually realised he was only a little younger than herself. She’d been like that, once. In love and foolish with it. This was where it had led her.
“If he’s planning on telling me another story about something ‘his’ Mary has said, or done, or thought,” Elizabeth muttered to herself as she lumbered across the living room, “I’m going to scream!”
She reached for the latch, and one hand drifted, automatically, to the hilt of the dagger she was now forced to carry in place of a sword. She lacked her former balance and agility, but she was still capable of defending herself. Probably.
Her hand dropped helplessly to her side when she caught sight of the figure outside.
“Jack Sparrow! What are you doing here?”
“Can’t a loyal subject come and pay tribute to his king?” he asked, sweeping off his hat with a flourish, and bowing in such a way that Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m not the Pirate King anymore,” she pointed out, but Jack merely grinned at her.
He didn’t seem to mind.
***
She didn’t ask why he had decided to visit her, or why he decided to stay, and Jack didn’t volunteer the information. Elizabeth knew he must have some sort of ulterior motive, but she couldn’t begin to guess what it was and she was sure she could defeat him when the time finally came. For now, it was nice to have some company.
It didn’t occur to Elizabeth that he might actually care, and that he was staying with her because of loyalty. Or worse, because of …
No. Those thoughts were truly terrifying.
***
“Jack!” he said firmly, proudly, “Good strong name, Jack. Can’t go wrong with it.”
Elizabeth, curled up in an armchair, shook her head and smiled. She was watching him with her hands clasped protectively over her stomach, which was, by all accounts, a rather standard position for pregnant women. Elizabeth couldn’t see why. No one would try and steal their child from them before it was born.
(Afterwards would probably be a different matter.)
“I don’t know,” she said genially, “I rather like the idea of naming him after my father, if it is a boy.”
Jack stared at her for a moment, before spluttering with indignation.
“Weatherby!” he yelped, dropping his bottle of rum with a loud clunk, “You can’t call the child Weatherby!”
“Why not?” Elizabeth smirked.
Jack considered this for a moment before retorting fiercely: “All the other children will pick on him!”
Elizabeth laughed delightedly. At least choosing a potential girl’s name had been easy. Jack had campaigned for Anne - after the infamous Anne Bonney - but the battle hadn’t lasted very long. There was no way Elizabeth would be swayed from naming a daughter after her own mother.
Periodically, Elizabeth wished that Will was here to join in with conversations like this, but then Jack would make a joke or launch into another story, and it was all too easy to forget someone it hurt so much to remember.
His tales of adventure on the high seas made her ache with longing. Although the stories were clearly embellished to impress her, she could still feel the sea spray on her cheeks and the wind tugging at her hair.
She would sigh in sorrow, but it was no good dwelling on her loss. She was becoming terribly practical as her pregnancy advanced. It was no good missing what you could never recreate.
***
The child, when it was finally born, was named William Turner the Third. Elizabeth thought it was appropriate, although Jack did roll his eyes and sulk when she first informed him. He was clearly sore that the ‘whelp’ hadn’t been named after him, and, according, attempted to ignore young William as much as possible during his first month of life.
Elizabeth had been prepared to be furious with him for treating her son - Will’s son! - that way, but soon realised that, whenever her back was turned, he cooed and fussed over the infant as fervently as any of the women who visited from the village.
“You’d make a good father, Jack,” she commented, watching from her favourite armchair as Jack cradled the baby (albeit rather tentatively, as if young William was going to attack at any moment). Her son was nearly five weeks old now, but still able to do very little but gurgle and cry. She could see nothing of herself in the child, and nothing of Will either, for that matter. She wondered if babies were always so dull.
“I’ll settle for being the godfather, Lizzie,” he replied with an immediate shake of his head, but he grinned despite himself, and she couldn’t help but return the smile.
***
“Storm brewing,” said Jack, peering out of the window at the ebony sky outside. The night sky was darkening even further as heavy grey clouds gathered on the horizon. “Sort of night that makes me glad I’m not out at sea …”
Elizabeth stepped up beside him, resting a hand on his arm, determined to savour one of the rare moments they had alone, with William sleeping peacefully - but heavily - in the next room.
“Is there nothing else which makes you glad you’re not out at sea?” she asked. It was a little flirtaceous, naturally, but also a little tentative. She was still waiting for him to spring whatever elaborate plot he’d been concocting over the last few months, but it was getting harder and harder to think like that now. Now she only worried about what she’d do when he left and why he hadn’t already done so.
Jack turned away from the sky and faced her, smiling in a way which she would have considered tender, if she hadn’t known better. It couldn’t be love, but it was better than nothing when she didn’t have the real thing anymore.
He’d protected her from the emptiness of her cottage and now he saved her from the emptiness of her bed.
It couldn’t be love.
“I can think of something, love,” he said, grinning at her with eyes filled with promise. Her heart was racing as painfully as it did when he told her stories of seafaring adventures.
It couldn’t be love.
He turned to face her, but, before they could kiss, the door burst open.
Elizabeth leapt back as if she’d been burned. She knew, with miserable resignation, that it couldn’t be Will, but an image of him standing there, silhouetted against the clouds, flashed through her mind before she could stop it.
“You!” snarled Jack, and the figure in the doorway smiled, stepping into the room before Elizabeth had regained her composure enough to look up.
“Aye, Jack,” Calypso said, slipping seamlessly into the form they were most familiar with, “Me.”
“What do you want here?” Elizabeth asked, stepping up next to Jack. She wasn’t scared, yet, but she was a little unnerved. Tia Dalma had been eerie, rich with power, but the raw energy of the unbound goddess hung heavy in the air of the room. She felt dizzy with it.
“I came to see why two o’ my most loyal subjects have suddenly given up da sea.”
She smiled at them with false sweetness, before her gaze slipped sideways, to the half-closed door of the next room and the cradle within.
“Ah,” she crooned, her smile widening and her eyes glittering, as black as the stormy sky outside. She wasn’t surprised.
Jack followed her gaze to the door, and, when she stepped towards it, stepped swiftly sideways to block her.
“What do you really want, Tia Dalma?” he demanded.
“You know dat is not my name,” she laughed. It was a terrible laugh. There was no humour in it, but there was the power of ice and rain and crashing waves, strong enough to make Elizabeth stagger a little as she joined Jack.
“You don’t know what dat child is, do you?” she cooed, as if talking to a petulant youngster.
“He’s my son,” Elizabeth replied, furious and finally a little scared, but comforted by Jack’s warm presence beside her. He didn’t look afraid. He’d have a plan. He always had a plan, somehow.
Calypso laughed again. “The dead an’ half dead were never meant to get life on da living,” she explained, eyes like coal black pools burning into Elizabeth, “So the Sea, it come to claim it own, before the child can claim more than the sea can hold.”
Her words were as cryptic as anything Calypso had said in the form of Tia Dalma, but one phrase in particular caught Elizabeth’s attention. The sea was coming to claim it's own.
“William is not yours,” she spat, her voice laden with a degree of hatred that Elizabeth hadn’t even realised she possessed. Even Jack looked a little surprised, although he didn’t dare take his eyes off Calypso to look at her.
“Which William?” Calypso enquired gently, “They are both mine, Elizabeth. Body an’ soul, they are mine. You husband, he sail da seas for eternity at my command, an’ your son, my spirit flow through him veins.”
“You’re wrong,” Elizabeth whispered, “Will put his heart in my care. He loves me.”
“But him obey me,” retorted Calypso, her voice crashing into Elizabeth like the tidal wave it echoed. “Even your lover would abandon you at my command.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that, Calypso,” said Jack suddenly. He seemed unwilling to look at Elizabeth as he spoke, but the younger woman was staring at him as if she’d never actually seen him before. Maybe she hadn’t.
Calypso, on the other hand, looked furious.
“You do not mean that,” she snarled, “You are mine, Jack Sparrow. You have always been mine. You gave your soul to the sea many years ago!”
“Aye,” said Jack, gaze slipping, just for a second, to Elizabeth, “But it seems I didn’t give my heart.”
Calypso followed his gaze, eyes burning into Elizabeth for a moment before she looked back at Jack.
“So this is your choice?” she asked, and Jack nodded. Calypso’s eyes darkened, but, a second later, she dipped her head in a barely perceptible nod of her own.
“Curious, isn’t it? Seems I’m a hard man to predict,” Jack said genially, echoing words Barbossa had spoken once, what felt like a whole lifetime ago. Elizabeth felt her heart swelling with pride and affection. Why was he doing this? A good deed, with no real reward, save her gratitude?
It couldn’t be love.
“Very well,” Calypso growled, her voice becoming truly inhuman. She seemed to grow in size as she spoke, filling the doorway, filling the room. Elizabeth grabbed Jack’s hand, and he pulled her behind him automatically, as if he could protect her from the fury of a goddess by sheer strength of will.
“Just remember this - the child is not truly yours, nor is he him father’s. He is mine. The sea is in his blood. One day he will return to me.”
Then she was gone. The door slammed shut behind her, and for a moment the only sound was the soft hiss of the rain outside.
In the next room, little William began to cry.
Elizabeth, still pale and trembling, hurried to tend him, but Jack - admittedly against his better judgment - disappeared out of the front door after Calypso.
The goddess had already reached the sea by the time Jack reached the cliff top, and was several metres out when he skidded to a halt on the sand. The waves were still only lapping at her ankles, even though they should have been at least waist deep there.
“Every sailor returns to you eventually,” he called out, “It doesn’t mean you own them.”
Calypso turned to face him, lips curling up into a cool, humourless smile.
“I hope you know what you are doing, Jack Sparrow. Siding with her.”
“I never do,” he said, with a lopsided grin. “More fun that way.”