Fic: December's Children, C. 4 - Break the Spell
Title: December’s Children
Chapter Four: Break the Spell
Author: djarum99
Characters: Jack, Elizabeth, Will, Bootstrap, and reference to Beckett
Rating: N17
Pairing: J/E, J/W, J/W/E implied
Disclaimer: Disney owns the world of pirates, and I make no profit
Warnings: post- AWE (spoilers), slightly AU, sexual encounters, baby!fic
A/N: This is a multi-chapter fic in the Sympathy for the Devil universe (Sympathy chapters are listed here in my fic index), and takes place after the events of that story. The title is from a song on the Stones’ Steel Wheels album, lyrics are here. Continued reflections on a pending birth, intersecting paths, and love, from varying POV’s. This one is for sage_laurel and her baby pirate-grrrl :-) May the wings of all the angels spread over you and yours.
Previous chapters:
C.1 - Child of the Moon
C.2 - Tell Me the Names of the Stars
C.3 - Wandering Spirit
The first time I hauled him aboard the Dutchman, Jack was drenched in blood and drunk beyond all reason. Or, perhaps reason was long since gone, and the rum an attempt to retrieve it. His ship rode low against the twilight, a heavy schooner crippled by cannon fire; her attackers had fled when the Dutchman broke the surface. She listed to starboard, sails in tatters and her mainmast sheared, eight bodies drifting beside her hull.
Jack refused to release the ninth, a boy of no more than twelve, slung lifeless over his shoulder. When we finally loosed Jack’s grip the body slipped to the deck, half the thin chest lost to grape shot, shards of bone gleaming stark and white in shredded flesh. I’ve seen worse, but the sight of him clinging to that torn child stopped my heart. A poor metaphor, yes, but for one wandering moment I feared Elizabeth might sense the change, might find terror in the absence of my heartbeat.
Jack fought us like madman and drunkard combined, staggering, his eyes wild and white-rimmed in a mask of blood and kohl. He held a dozen crewmen at bay until Fletcher stepped in behind, laying him out with a single ham-fisted blow. My father knelt beside him, spoke low in his ear as he struggled to rise. I caught only a few slurred phrases - “stepped in front of me...take care of him” and “safe, keep her safe...where is she?” Reassured by the whispered answer, his eyes seemed to lose their fire and he collapsed against the boards. Fletcher swept him up, limp in his arms, and I waved him towards my cabin.
“What did you tell him?”
My father smiled, sad and slow, with something in his eyes that spoke of pity. “Lies, son. Told him lies, and a small piece of the truth. He asked about the boy, and Elizabeth. Seemed to think she was here.”
“With me?”
“No. With him.”
Midnight had come and gone before I could return to my cabin, my duties to the dead complete. I found Jack in my bed beneath the salt-glazed windows, staring into a darkness that has never seen the stars. The Dutchman followed a course I have no need to chart, sails full and rigging taut, deep beneath the waves.
Fletcher had removed Jack’s stained clothing; one of Jones’ former crewmen, he’d shed scales and barnacles to reveal a gentle man. Jack lay naked atop blankets that always smell of brine, shivering, his body streaked in sweat and the dull rust of dried blood. I brought the basin and a lantern, and began to wash him clean.
He allowed it, quiet at last, eyes wide and dark and lost. A prisoner’s eyes. Broken - like those of sailors whose destination is uncertain when they step aboard the Dutchman. Souls whose final journey is a turning point, a choice, between endless midnight and the green-gold light of summer, all that I can see of the shores where they disembark. Never thought to see Jack Sparrow broken; something in me broke that night, against the ruin of his spirit, of mine.
“Cold...so cold, and his blood was hot rain, so much blood. Dead, Will, and he shouldn’t be, stepped in front of me, should have been me, was me...”
His hands spidered across the sheets, searching, restless. When I settled beside him and pulled him close, he offered no resistance. I held him until his body stilled and his breathing slowed, giving him what little heat I have. Comfort, the anchor of human contact, the intimacy of muscle and bone - things I’d forgotten, too soon.
Touching him like that...it was a thing I’d never imagined, not before, not when I was a man and he the most uncertain of enemies and friends. He kissed me, and I couldn’t pull away; so strange, the feel of a man’s mouth on mine, hard and hungry, and then so soft. Nothing like Elizabeth’s, but warm, alive; the sea is so cold, and the dead so far from hunger’s reach.
In the end, he showed me what he wanted, what I did, both of us desperate and shaking. I had no words for it, but Jack answered with those pirate’s hands, with his teeth, his skin. God, his skin...I could read his soul in it, drawn clear and sharp in scars and defiant ink, a tale of weary, bright-edged hope. The kind of hope that can save a man, the hope all men surrender at the touch of death’s hand - my hand.
I think Jack saved us both that night.
As a man, I saw only the surface of choice, right and wrong, black and white, no confusiing shades of gray. Now I see what lies beneath, human love and human fear, light and darkness, warmth and ice. I am Death, and no longer hold hope or fear for death’s release. Without fear, there is only love, but the sea allows me little chance to claim it. Better to share it, then, in all that life offers and death destroys. Jack Sparrow is a good man beneath his wit and trickery, willing to risk love despite the danger of it - I could do no better than to share love with him. I owed him a destiny, so I sent him to seek the only one I knew, the only one he wanted; I sent him to find what I had lost.
Once, I was a blacksmith, a man who loved one woman and could see no destiny but her. Now I belong to the sea, a ship that sails between the worlds, and two fierce hearts that ease my journey. In the long night that lies between the living and the dead, Calypso sometimes comes to me. She lies cool in my arms, though I am not her lover, and whispers of those who hold my heart.
“Your story won’ be forgotten, William Turner, on de land or on de sea - Jack Sparrow and your ’Lizabeth will see to that. Two de number of union, three of trinity, woven strong; four de number of creation, new life. She full with Jack’s child, a dark-eyed daughter to carry the tale.”
I felt the pain of it, deep and hot like the blade of a knife, but joy followed close behind and I will keep that near. I can feel them, on the sea; they come to share that joy with me, to share their dreams. My dreams, once, and still. Calypso tells me there are those who mean them harm, and dare my waters; I will protect them, fight for them, Jack and Elizabeth and the child. I will kill for what I love, and I will ferry the souls that fall to my sword. Even a humble blacksmith can see the irony of that, dark and twisting, a snake swallowing its tail.
Do you fear Death?
~
“Damn it, Bess - easy, love, and gently. Perhaps we should consider acquiring the services of a nurse, at least for the changing of the child’s...whatnots. Would hate to subject her to such tyranny.” Jack squirmed beneath her touch, wincing as the Nereid lurched into the trough of a wave and sent quills and parchment skittering across the chart table. They had sailed at dawn beneath the flat gray of an encroaching storm, with Jack’s assurance that they would soon outrun it. Sunset now crowned the last of the thunderheads, feathering to mist against the dusk, but the sea held a lingering fury.
“Stop, or I swear you will know pain. I’ll be a perfectly fit mother, and you are being perfectly...infantile about this.” Elizabeth drew the last of the linen snug against his bruised ribs and knotted the fraying ends. She had used her own bindings, discarded due to the tender swelling of her breasts. Jack alternated between grinning and scowling at their rounded sway, depending on the number of crewmen who shared his view. His right side bore a purpling reminder of his encounter with island granite; she had heard the sharp hiss of his breath each time he reached for a rope or gestured towards the rigging.
“I will be.” She felt the harp-string quaver in her voice, and the grainy heat of threatening tears.
“Will be what? My lovely and cunning instrument of grievous bodily harm? Can think of better uses for your varied and delicate talents, love.” Jack lowered himself cautiously against the pillows, groaning, and pulled her down beside him.
“I will be a good mother.”
He turned to study her face, slipped a finger beneath her chin and kissed her.
“Yes. You will. Tell me about yours, love.”
Jack had parted the curtain of his past, warm in their bed during morning's dark hours, a terse account of the act of mercy that had left him branded a pirate. The words had pierced like bullets, and his wary eyes had never left hers, awaiting her revulsion, her horror. He had ended the tale with his capture, Beckett's men dragging him beaten and chained to the rails to witness the burning of his ship, sacrificed to an honour both steadfast and naïve. She had given him all that she could of acceptance, kept her gaze level and her hands still against his chest. Jack had not told her of all that came after, not yet - honour’s price and Beckett’s revenge, exacted in blood and shame.
“My mother. She died when I was eight, and my world ended. It felt like that. Everything safe, and certain - gone, with her. And then my father - he was gone, too, and I had to be strong, had to bring him back, make him smile again. They said it was the fever that took my mother, but...I saw him, Jack, the doctor, drawing blood from her arm, so much blood it filled a basin. I had hidden behind the curtains; I still remember the way they smelled, of dust, and winter sunshine, and her perfume. Two mornings later, she didn’t wake up, and I’ve missed her every morning since. I screamed at that doctor, raged... I blamed him, you see. I think I still do. I tried to push him down the stairs, as he left my mother cold in her bed.”
“Of course you did. My fledgling Lizzie, a fierce little swan. What sort of woman was she, your mother, to hatch such a formidable and distressing cygnet?” She searched for a taunt but found only curiosity, warm and open in his eyes.
“She was...happy, alive with it, and in love with my father. I can’t remember her face, but I do remember that.”
“Well, then. You’ll be a good mother, and our child will be a most rara avis, half sparrow and half swan.”
She caught the shadow of his fear, flickering silent beneath the jest.
“Yes. Yes, I will be a good mother. I’ll survive the birth, I am happy, and I do love you, Jack.” His body stiffened, but he held her gaze and did not move away.
“Wasn’t asking you for-”
“But you can. You can ask those questions, and I can answer. That’s what we are. That’s what this means.” She took his hand, pressed it against the slope of her belly, and felt the languid swirl of their child’s response, rippling against their joined fingers.
“Oh...” Another liquid shift beneath her ribs, and Jack’s smile curved bright.
“She’s flying, Bess. She’s flying.”
~
He gave her the rest of his story that night, held her close and told her of Beckett’s lash, other torments that had flayed his skin and his spirit until he begged for death’s release. The worst had left no scars.
“I’d marked him months before, you see. Cut him as his crew was boarding the Wench, sliced through his breeches, spilled his blood and baubles on the maindeck. Looked like nothing so much as shucked oysters - he stood there clutching himself, gaping like a beached haddock. Lucky blow; I tripped over a belaying pin. Can’t say I regretted it at the time, and demon luck stayed with me, for a while. Bloody little bugger expected no loyalty from my crew, thought they’d lay their weapons down at first sight of a grappling hook. We fought them off and sailed free that day. They caught us again off Kingston’s coast, killed half my men; never saw the rest again.”
Jack had eased his body closer to the wall, a distance measured in dark memories but close enough for warmth, his eyes hollow shadows in the lamp’s elusive glow. When he spoke again his voice was flat, bound tight in his throat as though he did not trust it.
“Beckett tied the cat’s leathers, did the flogging himself. Old naval custom, two extra knots in each cord, meant to give more pain to a thief. Stole more than slaves from him, and honour - perhaps not such a lucky blow after all. After, while his men took me one by one, he stood and watched; never let go of the whip. Can still see the look on his face, satisfaction, though he could take none from me himself, and...envy. My blood had dried by the time they’d finished. He saved the brand for last; kept smelling it, burning flesh, for weeks after it healed. Was Gibbs that saved me. ‘Tis the one tale he never tells, and it will keep another night. Best be getting some sleep.”
“Jack-” She reached for him but he stayed her hand, turned his face to windows framing midnight, an empty portrait in shades of black.
“Don’t, Bess. ‘Twas in another lifetime, and besides, the bastard’s dead.”
She kept his silence, waited, allowed his truth to make its way beneath her skin, find refuge in her soul. Rising awkwardly on an elbow, she studied his face, taking care not to touch him.
“I’m not offering you pity. You’re the same man, Jack, the same man I’ve always known. Maddening, and devious, and heaven help me, honourable in your way - the most convoluted way possible, almost always, but honourable nevertheless. I want you. I want this. I...I respect you.” The last carried a grace note of wonder, for a truth she had not recognized until she spoke the words.
“You respect me.” His tone was solemn, but the corner of his moustache twitched, and her eye caught the glint of gold. “And what form might that take, Lizzie? Obeying my commands, complying with my wishes, attending my every need? That kind of respect?”
“You’d have little enough for me if it was.”
Jack closed the distance between them and lowered his mouth to whisper in her ear, a rasp of beard and the warm silk of words against her skin. “Then tell me, what is it puts apparel on my tattered loving, to show me worthy of thy sweet respect?”
Smiling, she arched her hips against him and buried her face in his hair. “’Tis not duty, nor wit, my lord.”
He grinned, a sly curve against her cheekbone, and she lifted her head to kiss him soft and slow. When they broke apart, she cradled his face, smoothing the tracery of sun and sea and time.
“You refused to forfeit your heart, Jack. In spite of Beckett, yourself...me. I respect you for that, more than I can say.”
“Respect; will hold you to that, love. Believe you also mentioned something about wanting me. Show me. Show me now.”
She took him gently at first, tasting his salt, mapping his body with her tongue until he moaned and tangled his hands in her hair to pull her back to his mouth. Her fingers traversed the elegant ridges of his spine, slipping down his flank to cup the silky weight of him, straining hard against her thigh. Jack moaned again, fingers digging into her hips as he tried to draw her beneath him.
“No, like this, I want to see your face, I want to watch you.” She straddled him and eased herself down until he bucked against her, sheathing himself deep. He struggled briefly for control and then surrendered, grinning sly and gold. Sliding a hand between them, he stroked the tender place above their joining, rough velvet friction to speed her fall.
“Not...fair.”
“Never play fair, never at this. Pirate. Want you to break, love, come undone. Soon, now, with me - can’t last.”
They finished in a sprawl at the edge of the mattress, Jack’s head thrown back and the tinkling spill of his braids sweeping the boards. She collapsed, burying her face against the tawny arch of his throat, his pulse a bird’s wing thrum against her skin.
Panting, he eased them both up to lie in a sated curl. “How much longer, love, till you’ll not want me in your bed?”
“Don’t know. When the baby grows so big that we can’t, or I’ll not want to. Now, I want to. Often. And I like sleeping with you, just sleeping - I won't want that to stop.”
“As my King decrees. And I can find my way ‘round your growing belly, love - it’s the ‘don’t want to’ will put a stop to pleasure, least that’s what I’ve...been told.”
She cast a sleepy glare over her shoulder and a sharp elbow towards his ribs, which he managed to avoid. “I suppose you’ve a lot of experience in such matters, being a man of the world, and all.”
Another thought drifted in, disturbing and unwanted. “Jack - do you have...have you ever-”
“No. At least none I’ve heard of, Lizzie, and that’s as fair as I can say, my life and travels having been what they were, and a man being what a man is, and...no. No by-blows that I know of, and...damn it, Lizzie, I didn’t mean-”
“By-blows?” She twisted to face him, only to find pain in his eyes that matched her own.
“Bess. You know what I’ve been, and you know I can’t...we can’t. You married Will. If it’s what you want, the child can carry his name. Won’t stop wagging tongues, but you’ve never paid much heed to that, and there are other ways to quiet them. Sharp and pointy ways, usually quite effective.” He held her gaze and waited for her answer; her pain gave way to certainty, warm and strong.
“No. I want our child to carry yours, the name you chose for yourself. Sparrow - if you’re willing.”
“Sparrow.”
“Yes.”
"Sparrow." A genuine smile shaped the name, for him a thing both rare and bright; she settled against his chest, circling his heartbeat with a gentle finger.
“What about the first, Bess?”
“The first?”
“Her first name.”
“What makes you so certain we’re having a daughter, Jack?”
“We are. Can feel it - can feel her.” His fingers moved across her belly drawing familiar runes and symbols, and once again, she felt an answering flutter. “See?”
“A girl, then. What name did you have in mind? You must have one, being so certain of her gender.” He stirred, splaying his hand across her stomach and pulling her close against his chest.
“Never forgot our second meeting. In Tortuga, on the docks; turned ‘round and there you were, demanding and haughty as ever, in sailor’s breeches and a tricorn. Were I of all kingdoms king... Rosalind. I like the name. Seems fitting.”
“Rosalind. Rosalind Sparrow.” She closed her eyes and a vision floated free, of tiny fists curled rosebud tight and eyes that echoed his.
“That’s it? No protests or pithy comebacks, Bess? You like the name?”
“I like the name. A child of Arden's forests, or Shipwreck Cove. We’re all exiles there, in one way or another. Rosalind. It sounds...right. Our daughter, Jack. To you I give myself, for I am yours. And I’m Will’s - we both are. Can we share this?”
“We already do, love."
A/A/N: Jack and Lizzie are once again paraphrasing Shakespeare in the cabin scene - Sonnet 26, and As You Like It. Thanks again to all who contributed baby names and voted in the poll.
C.5 - Don't Look Back
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Chapter Four: Break the Spell
Author: djarum99
Characters: Jack, Elizabeth, Will, Bootstrap, and reference to Beckett
Rating: N17
Pairing: J/E, J/W, J/W/E implied
Disclaimer: Disney owns the world of pirates, and I make no profit
Warnings: post- AWE (spoilers), slightly AU, sexual encounters, baby!fic
A/N: This is a multi-chapter fic in the Sympathy for the Devil universe (Sympathy chapters are listed here in my fic index), and takes place after the events of that story. The title is from a song on the Stones’ Steel Wheels album, lyrics are here. Continued reflections on a pending birth, intersecting paths, and love, from varying POV’s. This one is for sage_laurel and her baby pirate-grrrl :-) May the wings of all the angels spread over you and yours.
Previous chapters:
C.1 - Child of the Moon
C.2 - Tell Me the Names of the Stars
C.3 - Wandering Spirit
The first time I hauled him aboard the Dutchman, Jack was drenched in blood and drunk beyond all reason. Or, perhaps reason was long since gone, and the rum an attempt to retrieve it. His ship rode low against the twilight, a heavy schooner crippled by cannon fire; her attackers had fled when the Dutchman broke the surface. She listed to starboard, sails in tatters and her mainmast sheared, eight bodies drifting beside her hull.
Jack refused to release the ninth, a boy of no more than twelve, slung lifeless over his shoulder. When we finally loosed Jack’s grip the body slipped to the deck, half the thin chest lost to grape shot, shards of bone gleaming stark and white in shredded flesh. I’ve seen worse, but the sight of him clinging to that torn child stopped my heart. A poor metaphor, yes, but for one wandering moment I feared Elizabeth might sense the change, might find terror in the absence of my heartbeat.
Jack fought us like madman and drunkard combined, staggering, his eyes wild and white-rimmed in a mask of blood and kohl. He held a dozen crewmen at bay until Fletcher stepped in behind, laying him out with a single ham-fisted blow. My father knelt beside him, spoke low in his ear as he struggled to rise. I caught only a few slurred phrases - “stepped in front of me...take care of him” and “safe, keep her safe...where is she?” Reassured by the whispered answer, his eyes seemed to lose their fire and he collapsed against the boards. Fletcher swept him up, limp in his arms, and I waved him towards my cabin.
“What did you tell him?”
My father smiled, sad and slow, with something in his eyes that spoke of pity. “Lies, son. Told him lies, and a small piece of the truth. He asked about the boy, and Elizabeth. Seemed to think she was here.”
“With me?”
“No. With him.”
Midnight had come and gone before I could return to my cabin, my duties to the dead complete. I found Jack in my bed beneath the salt-glazed windows, staring into a darkness that has never seen the stars. The Dutchman followed a course I have no need to chart, sails full and rigging taut, deep beneath the waves.
Fletcher had removed Jack’s stained clothing; one of Jones’ former crewmen, he’d shed scales and barnacles to reveal a gentle man. Jack lay naked atop blankets that always smell of brine, shivering, his body streaked in sweat and the dull rust of dried blood. I brought the basin and a lantern, and began to wash him clean.
He allowed it, quiet at last, eyes wide and dark and lost. A prisoner’s eyes. Broken - like those of sailors whose destination is uncertain when they step aboard the Dutchman. Souls whose final journey is a turning point, a choice, between endless midnight and the green-gold light of summer, all that I can see of the shores where they disembark. Never thought to see Jack Sparrow broken; something in me broke that night, against the ruin of his spirit, of mine.
“Cold...so cold, and his blood was hot rain, so much blood. Dead, Will, and he shouldn’t be, stepped in front of me, should have been me, was me...”
His hands spidered across the sheets, searching, restless. When I settled beside him and pulled him close, he offered no resistance. I held him until his body stilled and his breathing slowed, giving him what little heat I have. Comfort, the anchor of human contact, the intimacy of muscle and bone - things I’d forgotten, too soon.
Touching him like that...it was a thing I’d never imagined, not before, not when I was a man and he the most uncertain of enemies and friends. He kissed me, and I couldn’t pull away; so strange, the feel of a man’s mouth on mine, hard and hungry, and then so soft. Nothing like Elizabeth’s, but warm, alive; the sea is so cold, and the dead so far from hunger’s reach.
In the end, he showed me what he wanted, what I did, both of us desperate and shaking. I had no words for it, but Jack answered with those pirate’s hands, with his teeth, his skin. God, his skin...I could read his soul in it, drawn clear and sharp in scars and defiant ink, a tale of weary, bright-edged hope. The kind of hope that can save a man, the hope all men surrender at the touch of death’s hand - my hand.
I think Jack saved us both that night.
As a man, I saw only the surface of choice, right and wrong, black and white, no confusiing shades of gray. Now I see what lies beneath, human love and human fear, light and darkness, warmth and ice. I am Death, and no longer hold hope or fear for death’s release. Without fear, there is only love, but the sea allows me little chance to claim it. Better to share it, then, in all that life offers and death destroys. Jack Sparrow is a good man beneath his wit and trickery, willing to risk love despite the danger of it - I could do no better than to share love with him. I owed him a destiny, so I sent him to seek the only one I knew, the only one he wanted; I sent him to find what I had lost.
Once, I was a blacksmith, a man who loved one woman and could see no destiny but her. Now I belong to the sea, a ship that sails between the worlds, and two fierce hearts that ease my journey. In the long night that lies between the living and the dead, Calypso sometimes comes to me. She lies cool in my arms, though I am not her lover, and whispers of those who hold my heart.
“Your story won’ be forgotten, William Turner, on de land or on de sea - Jack Sparrow and your ’Lizabeth will see to that. Two de number of union, three of trinity, woven strong; four de number of creation, new life. She full with Jack’s child, a dark-eyed daughter to carry the tale.”
I felt the pain of it, deep and hot like the blade of a knife, but joy followed close behind and I will keep that near. I can feel them, on the sea; they come to share that joy with me, to share their dreams. My dreams, once, and still. Calypso tells me there are those who mean them harm, and dare my waters; I will protect them, fight for them, Jack and Elizabeth and the child. I will kill for what I love, and I will ferry the souls that fall to my sword. Even a humble blacksmith can see the irony of that, dark and twisting, a snake swallowing its tail.
Do you fear Death?
~
“Damn it, Bess - easy, love, and gently. Perhaps we should consider acquiring the services of a nurse, at least for the changing of the child’s...whatnots. Would hate to subject her to such tyranny.” Jack squirmed beneath her touch, wincing as the Nereid lurched into the trough of a wave and sent quills and parchment skittering across the chart table. They had sailed at dawn beneath the flat gray of an encroaching storm, with Jack’s assurance that they would soon outrun it. Sunset now crowned the last of the thunderheads, feathering to mist against the dusk, but the sea held a lingering fury.
“Stop, or I swear you will know pain. I’ll be a perfectly fit mother, and you are being perfectly...infantile about this.” Elizabeth drew the last of the linen snug against his bruised ribs and knotted the fraying ends. She had used her own bindings, discarded due to the tender swelling of her breasts. Jack alternated between grinning and scowling at their rounded sway, depending on the number of crewmen who shared his view. His right side bore a purpling reminder of his encounter with island granite; she had heard the sharp hiss of his breath each time he reached for a rope or gestured towards the rigging.
“I will be.” She felt the harp-string quaver in her voice, and the grainy heat of threatening tears.
“Will be what? My lovely and cunning instrument of grievous bodily harm? Can think of better uses for your varied and delicate talents, love.” Jack lowered himself cautiously against the pillows, groaning, and pulled her down beside him.
“I will be a good mother.”
He turned to study her face, slipped a finger beneath her chin and kissed her.
“Yes. You will. Tell me about yours, love.”
Jack had parted the curtain of his past, warm in their bed during morning's dark hours, a terse account of the act of mercy that had left him branded a pirate. The words had pierced like bullets, and his wary eyes had never left hers, awaiting her revulsion, her horror. He had ended the tale with his capture, Beckett's men dragging him beaten and chained to the rails to witness the burning of his ship, sacrificed to an honour both steadfast and naïve. She had given him all that she could of acceptance, kept her gaze level and her hands still against his chest. Jack had not told her of all that came after, not yet - honour’s price and Beckett’s revenge, exacted in blood and shame.
“My mother. She died when I was eight, and my world ended. It felt like that. Everything safe, and certain - gone, with her. And then my father - he was gone, too, and I had to be strong, had to bring him back, make him smile again. They said it was the fever that took my mother, but...I saw him, Jack, the doctor, drawing blood from her arm, so much blood it filled a basin. I had hidden behind the curtains; I still remember the way they smelled, of dust, and winter sunshine, and her perfume. Two mornings later, she didn’t wake up, and I’ve missed her every morning since. I screamed at that doctor, raged... I blamed him, you see. I think I still do. I tried to push him down the stairs, as he left my mother cold in her bed.”
“Of course you did. My fledgling Lizzie, a fierce little swan. What sort of woman was she, your mother, to hatch such a formidable and distressing cygnet?” She searched for a taunt but found only curiosity, warm and open in his eyes.
“She was...happy, alive with it, and in love with my father. I can’t remember her face, but I do remember that.”
“Well, then. You’ll be a good mother, and our child will be a most rara avis, half sparrow and half swan.”
She caught the shadow of his fear, flickering silent beneath the jest.
“Yes. Yes, I will be a good mother. I’ll survive the birth, I am happy, and I do love you, Jack.” His body stiffened, but he held her gaze and did not move away.
“Wasn’t asking you for-”
“But you can. You can ask those questions, and I can answer. That’s what we are. That’s what this means.” She took his hand, pressed it against the slope of her belly, and felt the languid swirl of their child’s response, rippling against their joined fingers.
“Oh...” Another liquid shift beneath her ribs, and Jack’s smile curved bright.
“She’s flying, Bess. She’s flying.”
~
He gave her the rest of his story that night, held her close and told her of Beckett’s lash, other torments that had flayed his skin and his spirit until he begged for death’s release. The worst had left no scars.
“I’d marked him months before, you see. Cut him as his crew was boarding the Wench, sliced through his breeches, spilled his blood and baubles on the maindeck. Looked like nothing so much as shucked oysters - he stood there clutching himself, gaping like a beached haddock. Lucky blow; I tripped over a belaying pin. Can’t say I regretted it at the time, and demon luck stayed with me, for a while. Bloody little bugger expected no loyalty from my crew, thought they’d lay their weapons down at first sight of a grappling hook. We fought them off and sailed free that day. They caught us again off Kingston’s coast, killed half my men; never saw the rest again.”
Jack had eased his body closer to the wall, a distance measured in dark memories but close enough for warmth, his eyes hollow shadows in the lamp’s elusive glow. When he spoke again his voice was flat, bound tight in his throat as though he did not trust it.
“Beckett tied the cat’s leathers, did the flogging himself. Old naval custom, two extra knots in each cord, meant to give more pain to a thief. Stole more than slaves from him, and honour - perhaps not such a lucky blow after all. After, while his men took me one by one, he stood and watched; never let go of the whip. Can still see the look on his face, satisfaction, though he could take none from me himself, and...envy. My blood had dried by the time they’d finished. He saved the brand for last; kept smelling it, burning flesh, for weeks after it healed. Was Gibbs that saved me. ‘Tis the one tale he never tells, and it will keep another night. Best be getting some sleep.”
“Jack-” She reached for him but he stayed her hand, turned his face to windows framing midnight, an empty portrait in shades of black.
“Don’t, Bess. ‘Twas in another lifetime, and besides, the bastard’s dead.”
She kept his silence, waited, allowed his truth to make its way beneath her skin, find refuge in her soul. Rising awkwardly on an elbow, she studied his face, taking care not to touch him.
“I’m not offering you pity. You’re the same man, Jack, the same man I’ve always known. Maddening, and devious, and heaven help me, honourable in your way - the most convoluted way possible, almost always, but honourable nevertheless. I want you. I want this. I...I respect you.” The last carried a grace note of wonder, for a truth she had not recognized until she spoke the words.
“You respect me.” His tone was solemn, but the corner of his moustache twitched, and her eye caught the glint of gold. “And what form might that take, Lizzie? Obeying my commands, complying with my wishes, attending my every need? That kind of respect?”
“You’d have little enough for me if it was.”
Jack closed the distance between them and lowered his mouth to whisper in her ear, a rasp of beard and the warm silk of words against her skin. “Then tell me, what is it puts apparel on my tattered loving, to show me worthy of thy sweet respect?”
Smiling, she arched her hips against him and buried her face in his hair. “’Tis not duty, nor wit, my lord.”
He grinned, a sly curve against her cheekbone, and she lifted her head to kiss him soft and slow. When they broke apart, she cradled his face, smoothing the tracery of sun and sea and time.
“You refused to forfeit your heart, Jack. In spite of Beckett, yourself...me. I respect you for that, more than I can say.”
“Respect; will hold you to that, love. Believe you also mentioned something about wanting me. Show me. Show me now.”
She took him gently at first, tasting his salt, mapping his body with her tongue until he moaned and tangled his hands in her hair to pull her back to his mouth. Her fingers traversed the elegant ridges of his spine, slipping down his flank to cup the silky weight of him, straining hard against her thigh. Jack moaned again, fingers digging into her hips as he tried to draw her beneath him.
“No, like this, I want to see your face, I want to watch you.” She straddled him and eased herself down until he bucked against her, sheathing himself deep. He struggled briefly for control and then surrendered, grinning sly and gold. Sliding a hand between them, he stroked the tender place above their joining, rough velvet friction to speed her fall.
“Not...fair.”
“Never play fair, never at this. Pirate. Want you to break, love, come undone. Soon, now, with me - can’t last.”
They finished in a sprawl at the edge of the mattress, Jack’s head thrown back and the tinkling spill of his braids sweeping the boards. She collapsed, burying her face against the tawny arch of his throat, his pulse a bird’s wing thrum against her skin.
Panting, he eased them both up to lie in a sated curl. “How much longer, love, till you’ll not want me in your bed?”
“Don’t know. When the baby grows so big that we can’t, or I’ll not want to. Now, I want to. Often. And I like sleeping with you, just sleeping - I won't want that to stop.”
“As my King decrees. And I can find my way ‘round your growing belly, love - it’s the ‘don’t want to’ will put a stop to pleasure, least that’s what I’ve...been told.”
She cast a sleepy glare over her shoulder and a sharp elbow towards his ribs, which he managed to avoid. “I suppose you’ve a lot of experience in such matters, being a man of the world, and all.”
Another thought drifted in, disturbing and unwanted. “Jack - do you have...have you ever-”
“No. At least none I’ve heard of, Lizzie, and that’s as fair as I can say, my life and travels having been what they were, and a man being what a man is, and...no. No by-blows that I know of, and...damn it, Lizzie, I didn’t mean-”
“By-blows?” She twisted to face him, only to find pain in his eyes that matched her own.
“Bess. You know what I’ve been, and you know I can’t...we can’t. You married Will. If it’s what you want, the child can carry his name. Won’t stop wagging tongues, but you’ve never paid much heed to that, and there are other ways to quiet them. Sharp and pointy ways, usually quite effective.” He held her gaze and waited for her answer; her pain gave way to certainty, warm and strong.
“No. I want our child to carry yours, the name you chose for yourself. Sparrow - if you’re willing.”
“Sparrow.”
“Yes.”
"Sparrow." A genuine smile shaped the name, for him a thing both rare and bright; she settled against his chest, circling his heartbeat with a gentle finger.
“What about the first, Bess?”
“The first?”
“Her first name.”
“What makes you so certain we’re having a daughter, Jack?”
“We are. Can feel it - can feel her.” His fingers moved across her belly drawing familiar runes and symbols, and once again, she felt an answering flutter. “See?”
“A girl, then. What name did you have in mind? You must have one, being so certain of her gender.” He stirred, splaying his hand across her stomach and pulling her close against his chest.
“Never forgot our second meeting. In Tortuga, on the docks; turned ‘round and there you were, demanding and haughty as ever, in sailor’s breeches and a tricorn. Were I of all kingdoms king... Rosalind. I like the name. Seems fitting.”
“Rosalind. Rosalind Sparrow.” She closed her eyes and a vision floated free, of tiny fists curled rosebud tight and eyes that echoed his.
“That’s it? No protests or pithy comebacks, Bess? You like the name?”
“I like the name. A child of Arden's forests, or Shipwreck Cove. We’re all exiles there, in one way or another. Rosalind. It sounds...right. Our daughter, Jack. To you I give myself, for I am yours. And I’m Will’s - we both are. Can we share this?”
“We already do, love."
A/A/N: Jack and Lizzie are once again paraphrasing Shakespeare in the cabin scene - Sonnet 26, and As You Like It. Thanks again to all who contributed baby names and voted in the poll.
C.5 - Don't Look Back
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