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The Captain's Vessel (2/3)
Title: The Captain's Vessel
Fandom: PotC
Disclaimer: Property of Disney, appropriated without permission for my own horrible ends, which do not, however, include profit.
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, m-preg, language
Pairings: Jack/Will. Jack/Bootstrap alluded to. Jack/Elizabeth. Non-sexual Will/Elizabeth. Elizabeth/Barbossa suggested.
Summary: Will Turner must sail as the Flying Dutchman's captain for ten years, after which he can return to the world if his lover Jack Sparrow stays true. Meanwhile, Jack finds himself in a delicate condition. Will the King of the Pirates help him--or take advantage of him?
Note: This part is a tiny bit more serious in some ways than the last. Still crack, though. Still not intended to offend. For full warning and intro, see Part 1. Last part will probably go up this weekend, as school starts tomorrow.
Feedback: I will philosophically accept any complaints and have reserved a spot in the handbasket-direct to the Special Hell. In my defense, crack isn't nearly as much fun when you don't share it.
The Captain's Vessel, Part 1
The Captain's Vessel
Second Trimester
"Why, Cap'n, you're-you're-"
"You'd better come in," Elizabeth interrupted. She grasped Ragetti by his outstretched arm, dragged him into the cabin, and slammed the door, throwing the bolt and leaning against it.
"Would it kill you to knock?" Jack demanded, fairly shaking with rage and humiliation. "Feculent maggot! This is a pirate ship, man, not some lady's garden party to go waltzing about in at your whim!"
"Sorry, Cap'n!" Ragetti backed up, but Elizabeth's hand fell on his shoulder and gripped it, hard, and he quailed away from her, caught between the two of them. "Didn't mean to intrude, truly I didn't! But 'ow was I to know you'd be, er, indisposed?"
Elizabeth was shaking, too, but with suppressed laughter; Jack glared at her, and she gained control of herself with what appeared to be some difficulty. "Now, Ragetti," she said, like the kindly monarch that she wasn't granting mercy to a condemned man, "it may in truth be fortunate that you've been let in on Captain Sparrow's secret. We-and that includes the Captain of the Flying Dutchman-will be deeply indebted to you for your help."
"Really?" Ragetti's glance darted from one to the other, but he looked hopeful. "'Ow's that?"
"I'll tell you," Elizabeth said soothingly, "but before I do, it's very important that you don't breathe a word about this to anyone. Understand?"
Her hand must have tightened on his shoulder, for Ragetti winced and gulped, bobbing his head.
"Good," said the King of the Pirates. "Because Jack will need someone to look after him during his confinement, and I think you're just the man for the job."
"Look after him?" Ragetti said, staring. "You mean, like a nursemaid or such? In petticoats, and all that?"
"Look after me?" Jack growled, at the same time. "Look here, woman, I don't need any looking after! And what do you mean, confinement?"
"You can wear petticoats if you like," Elizabeth told Ragetti, whose face broke into a gap-toothed grin at the prospect. "As for you," she said to Jack, "you didn't think you could keep sailing in your delicate condition, did you? If you think you're showing now, just wait a few months! And even if you can fool the rest of the crew, the sudden appearance of a newborn will certainly give you away."
"If you think I'm staying in Shipwreck Cove with Teague and his musty old Code, you're wrong." Jack shuddered to think of what his old sire would say to this new development. Knocked up, are you, Jackie boy? Always knew you'd come to a bad end, putting on airs like you do, and you too pretty by half. No, it didn't bear thinking of.
"I thought you might want to be near family," Elizabeth said, and looked surprised at his strangled noise of denial. "But if you'd rather not, I can find you a nice little cottage somewhere quiet and out of the way."
When she put it like that, he didn't quite know which option sounded worse.
If only Will were here, he found himself thinking, and immediately wished the thought away. But it didn't matter. At that moment, he would have given his eyeteeth-the gold ones, too-just to feel his beloved's strong arms around him, to hear that warm, low voice in his ear telling him it would be all right. Maybe Will would kneel and put his cheek to Jack's belly, listening to the movement of the little creature within, and then kiss his way lower-
"Jack! Jack, are you all right?" Elizabeth said. She laid a hand on his arm. "I was just saying I thought I knew the perfect place for you to have the baby."
"You looked a bit woozy, there, Cap'n," Ragetti said officiously. "Why don't ye 'ave yourself a seat," offering one of Jack's own chairs.
"I'm fine," Jack snapped, waving Ragetti away, and shook off Elizabeth's arm.
"'Ere!" said Ragetti, aggrieved. "We was just tryin' to help."
"I told you I don't need help," Jack said, and found himself once again engaged in a valiant struggle to keep from bursting into inexplicable tears.
Elizabeth and Ragetti exchanged knowing looks, but Jack, biting his lip to keep it from trembling, pretended not to notice.
* * *
"Ow," Jack said, grimacing, and collapsed gratefully onto the bed, which he had to admit was far more comfortable than the one in the Black Pearl's cabin, let alone the hammock he'd been sleeping in half the time. He couldn't exactly plead his belly against Barbossa's concept of sharing, and he hadn't gotten much sleep away from Will's chest, anyway. Now the chest was safely stowed under the floorboards of the cottage, beneath the bed; if he lay still enough, he could hear its steady beat.
Elizabeth turned from the window, where she'd been fussing with the curtains; for a moment, she almost looked domestic, if one could ignore the weapons bristling at her belt, the breeches, the boots, the hat, and everything else about her. "What's the matter now? I didn't think the walk would be too far."
Jack, who was still trying to catch his breath after their trek from the little cove to the lone cottage on the bluffs, glowered at her. "I hurt. Everywhere. And the little monster keeps kicking me in the kidneys."
"I'd get used to that, if I were you," she said, with less sympathy than he thought appropriate. She dropped into a crouch by the big chest in the corner and threw it open, apparently to take inventory of the linens provided by her orders. "I'll have Ragetti make up a fire in here and brew you some tea."
"I'd rather have rum," he said, petulantly.
"I'm not sure rum is good for babies."
"This is my baby," Jack said. "Rum is most certainly good for it….What was that look for?"
"Nothing," she said, and then, "You finally said it was yours, that's all."
"Not as if I had any choice in the matter." He grunted as the thing kicked again. "Buggering hell. Are you sure this how it's supposed to work?"
"Don't ask me," Elizabeth said, irritably. "I've never done it before, either."
"But you're a--" he sketched vague curves in the air.
"A woman? So you've noticed, then."
"I did notice."
"Jack, we're not like birds," she said, over this; she didn't even seem to register his leer. He supposed it was less effective coming from a pregnant…person. "We're not born with this kind of knowledge by instinct. Besides," she eyed his swollen figure, "I'm not sure this is going to work the way it would for me. If it works at all."
That sounded vaguely ominous. "What do you mean?"
She sat back on her heels, sighing. "You're not made to have babies, Jack."
He rolled his eyes. "Your insight is inescapable, darling." But before he could continue, he caught a glimpse of her face, and a chill ran down his spine. "You think this could kill me, don't you?"
"I told you. I don't know."
"But you're worried. And I'm flattered. But also worried."
"I know," she said. She looked as tired as he felt. "I'm sorry."
He dropped his head back down on the pillow. "This isn't fair," he said.
"Women die in childbirth all the time," she said. "And no, it's not fair. It's just the way it is. For us. And now for you." She stood, stared down at him for a moment, her face a cipher. "Ever get a woman with child in your long career, Jack?"
He frowned. "I don't recall, love. Never stayed 'round long enough to find out, I'm afraid."
Her smile seemed to hurt her. "Well," she said, "now you know what that's like, don't you."
Before he could answer, she had turned and strode out of the room. Jack stared after her, and then up at the ceiling.
"And I thought I was the one who was supposed to be moody…"
* * *
"No," Jack said. "Absolutely not. No bloody leeches. I won't have some condescending physician poking about my parts and making me the subject of his scientific diagrams. And he wouldn't know what to do about it anyway. It's not as if this has ever happened before!"
"Zeus bore Athena," Elizabeth offered.
"Who sprang fully formed from his head, if you remember. Hardly likely in my case."
"It does seem a little impractical," she said. "But it puts this--" waving a hand at the bulk of his stomach-- "in some perspective, doesn't it?"
"Somehow, I'm not finding it very comforting, however."
Ragetti cleared his throat. "What about Loki?" he said. "One of those Scandinavian gods, 'e was. Had a babe of 'is own, according to the stories. 'Course, 'e were a horse at the time. A lady horse."
There was a little silence. Jack and Elizabeth glanced at each other, then at Ragetti, who cringed away from their twinned glare.
"What? Just thought I'd share my knowledge of the pertinent mythology!"
"Please don't," said Jack. "Now, are there any solutions for this that don't involve me turning into a mare or splitting my skull open?"
Elizabeth sighed, pressing her palms to her eyes. "I think we should assume, Jack, that whatever power has seen fit to get you this way has provided the means and the method to see it through."
"That's all very well for you," said Jack, "but it's not you who's to be that means, is it? Me, I'd prefer a little more certainty than blind faith in my corner, if you please."
"Well," Elizabeth said, "I'm afraid that's about all we have." She contemplated him, frowning slightly. "Still, I wish you'd consider the doctor. You could be a famous case, you know. A medical mystery for generations of alchemists and scholars."
"And not the sort of fame I like to cultivate, thanks very much."
"Just a thought," Elizabeth said, with a shrug; but she seemed abstracted, as if pursuing some elusive idea to its logical conclusion.
He hoped it was a good one, but knowing her mind as he did, he wasn't sure he wanted to know the specifics.
* * *
"You gave Barbossa the Pearl?" Jack fairly shrieked.
"Traded her to him, to be precise," Elizabeth said. "Put the pistol away, Jack. Waving it at me won't do you a whit of good, I'm afraid. The deal's sealed and done."
He sputtered. "What right have you to trade away my ship?"
"King," she said, with abominable complacency. "You didn't think I'd do all this for nothing, did you? Besides, the question of title has remained unresolved, and you know you won't be in any shape to sail for awhile. Aren't you going to ask what I got for her?"
"A soul might do you good," he retorted, "but Hector hasn't got much in the way of one, either."
"This is much better, anyway," she said, triumphantly, and drew out the thing she'd been hiding behind her back, unrolling it with a flourish. "Sao Feng's chart. It doesn't only show the way to the end of the world, you know."
He frowned. "Er, Elizabeth? I mean, Your Majesty? I think you were cheated."
"What do you mean?" She followed his gaze to the gaping hole in the center of the chart. "Oh! That. I decided I better keep the relevant part concealed on my person, in case Captain Barbossa decides to…unilaterally dissolve our new partnership." An odd little smile crossed her face. "He's a fine old gentleman of fortune, but I know better than to trust him. So I said to myself, what would Jack do?"
"And your answer was 'mutilate ancient and arcane works of the navigational art'?" Jack said scornfully. "It's rather depressing, how little you people know me." But he was fighting a crashing numbness as he spoke. Not only had she seen fit to barter away his Black Pearl-which was only to be expected, after all; pirate-she was leaving him to do this all alone. She and Barbossa-and the way she spoke of the old reprobate, with admiration and something approaching affection! But maybe this was to be expected, as well. Jack knew the Pirate King's appetites as well as any; in fact, he thought with a bitterness that surprised him, he'd be a fool to expect differently. "So you're off, then, you and Hector? A right pair of peas in a pod, you are. And me stranded in this godforsaken place."
She had the grace to look ashamed, rolling up the chart slowly and stroking the worn bamboo slats with restless fingers, her gaze anywhere but meeting his. "I knew you wouldn't understand," she said. "But I can't stay, Jack. I'm the King. I have a reputation to maintain these days…and anyway, you've got Ragetti." She paused, wincing slightly; the one-eyed pirate could be heard from the other room, wheezing a ribald sea chanty as he attacked the washing from supper with gusto. "This way, I can prevail on Hector to bring the Pearl back to you when you're ready to be her Captain again. If you decide that's what you want." She glanced up at last. "I'm sorry, Jack."
"No, you're not," he said roughly. He turned away to the window of the little cottage; outside, the sun had just begun to dip below the horizon, setting the ocean awash in a bloody crimson light, and he closed his eyes for a moment so that he would not look for a green flash. Ten years. "I understand all too well, Elizabeth," he said, to the fading sky. "You were meant to be free, not anchored to one harbor or one heart. If our places were somehow reversed…"
"It's my nature," she said, but he was right, of course; she didn't sound as though she regretted it. "We sail tomorrow morning, with the tide."
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Then stay tonight."
"What?"
"You heard me," he said, pleased to have gotten a rise out of her for once.
"Jack, I-"
"Yes, you can," he said. "King, remember? You can do exactly what you want, when you want to."
"Who says I want to?" she said, but she looked uncertain.
"If it's the curse you're worried about," he said quietly, "I know the consequences as well as you. Better, I daresay. You can trust me to behave myself."
"Yes," she said, "you wouldn't risk Will's future, would you?" The room had sunk into twilight, and in the shadows he couldn't quite make out her expression; so her next words shocked him into silence. "But would you trust me, Jack?"
Never, he wanted to say, or perhaps, unreasonably, always. But she had stepped towards him in the half-light, until he could see what was in her eyes, and recognize it. It had smoldered for a long time. Since before he'd died. Since that night on the rumrunner's island, what seemed a lifetime ago but was really only a few short years.
Fire.
"I wouldn't have thought that would be a problem, Lizzie," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. "I'm not much of a man, these days, for you to find desirable."
She laughed. It had an edge on it, that laugh, chilling and heating his blood all at once. She was so close that he could have touched her; but he fancied he'd cut himself, and did not. "And in the penny dreadfuls you can find on the streets of any port," she said, "you'll learn I'm hardly a natural female. Haven't you heard the stories?"
He had, vaguely: she was a virago, a harpy, a witch, an insatiable hermaphrodite. She captured wayward sailors and kept them for her harem-or had them for supper with a fine Tuscan Chianti. She had cut off her own right breast so that she could shoot a rifle more easily; the tale-teller had been cribbing rather shamelessly, that day. She had let her lover become Davy Jones rather than be bound in marriage to any man. She had fed another lover to a Kraken to win a bet with the Devil. Her legend, thus amended, had flown enviably fast and far; not without, he suspected, some encouragement by its subject.
"I know what you are, Elizabeth Swann," he said. "I've always known."
"And is that what you want in your bed tonight?" she said, still sharp as knives. "I'll not play your poor man's substitute for Will, nor any man; nor any woman, if it comes to that."
"So much pride," he said, "and you'll have mine as well?"
"And you have him, and he has you; and what of me?" She said it lightly, as if quoting a farce, but now he knew those knives, and how to brave them.
"Come to bed, my Liege," he said; and took her hand, giving her his best cheeky grin. "Maybe you could rub me back while you're at it, eh?"
"Incorrigible wretch," she said, with a snort. "You should be so lucky."
But when he lay down on the bed, she lay behind him, and after a minute he felt her fingers along his spine, kneading the knotted muscles there. Her touch was firm, and oddly impersonal; when he groaned a little as the tension released, she hesitated briefly before continuing.
When her hands stilled, he held his breath, but she didn't move away; instead, she draped her arm over him, her palm lightly splayed across the round of his stomach. Chaste enough, but his skin seemed extra-sensitive, acutely awake, and he could feel her small breasts pressing soft against his shoulders, her warm breath stirring his hair.
"Jack?" she said finally.
"Mmm?"
"What is it like, really?"
"What is what like?"
"This," and she stroked his belly lightly; he shivered. "Carrying his child. Being his….Being chosen."
Being loved. He heard the unspoken question, found himself as much at a loss to answer it as the other. "It's…well, it's like nothing on Earth," he said. "Like me own body isn't mine to control anymore. Me mind, too, if it comes to that. A bit like madness. But…" He cleared his throat, searching for words to express this alien emotion. "It's not all bad, honestly. When I think about this scrap of…life growing inside me, feeding off me, taking over me impulses…it's like a miracle, innit? I belong to the little beastie now. And what doesn't belong to it, belongs to Will Turner. I'm good with it."
He felt her draw back a little, then. "Some miracle," she muttered. He rolled onto his back so he could see her face; she had propped herself on one elbow to consider him, and she seemed strangely gripped by some strong emotion, regret or revulsion. "All this talk of whom you belong to….Jack, I remember you told me once you held nothing more dear than your freedom. Have you really changed so much?"
He swept one hand down his body. "See for yourself, O King." But she looked so troubled that he relented. "'Tis a different kind of freedom, Lizzie. You couldn't understand it. Oh, you might someday, if you let nature take its course. But tell me, darling…do you really miss my selfishness?"
"I think 'tis but a different kind of selfishness, now," she said, with a short laugh. "So, no. Perhaps I don't miss it, for all that." And then her eyes sparked with sudden mischief, raking along his supine figure. "Tell me, Jack," she said slyly. "Just how much have you changed? Shall I see for myself, as you say?"
Her hand brushed lightly over his knee to rest upon his thigh; and instantly he found himself caught between warring instincts and keenly aware of his own vulnerability, as she must surely have been. It was Will he loved, he thought frantically, and not this wild, untamable woman, who had taken and betrayed him to his death, who would never stay and never give her heart to anyone, figuratively or literally. But she was here and touching him, and Will was not; and the way she smiled down at him, slow and wicked, knotted desire hot and tight and low in his groin, even though he could not decide if the smile was malicious or merely self-satisfied. Perhaps a little of both.
"So there is one thing that has not changed, after all," she murmured. He wondered if she could see the outline of his cock straining against his breeches; he could not, for his swollen belly obscured his view.
"You look," he said, "as if you are wondering if I have grown a quim for you to fuck." And his voice rasped unevenly over the words, for he hadn't anticipated the rush of arousal that accompanied them, nor the flash of the same in her eyes, the brief spasmodic tightening of her fingers as he spoke.
"Will didn't need one," she said, and her own voice shook just a little. "Why should I? But I must admit to the thought that this baby must find its way out of you somehow, and surely…"
"You mean, I may be loose, but surely I'm not so loose as that?" He managed almost the right tone, deliberately harsh, though he thought of how those slender fingers might twist inside him and was very nearly lost.
She winced. "I didn't think that," she said, removing her hand; he immediately missed its pressure and warmth. And its promise. "I'm sorry. I…forgot myself."
He caught her wrist, holding it easily; for all her formidable power, not least over him, she was still a woman and his was still a man's strength. "Did you?" he said softly. "You are in all things cruel, Elizabeth Swann, but this may be the cruelest yet. I said I know you."
"And you also know we can't," she said; she sounded desperate, maybe even afraid-of him of or herself, he couldn't guess. "It would be crueler still if I…Jack, don't ask me to. Think of Will."
"Will," he said, "is very far away." He released her, turned his head away from her on the pillow, fighting a rising sense of desolation. "You asked what you have in all this," he said, when he could speak. "Let it be known, love, that I don't have much more. Not where it counts, at least. He's not here."
"I know," she whispered. "Oh, my dear. I know." And she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, cradling his head to her breast as if he were a child, stroking back the tangle of hair and baubles that fell over his face in a mass; he let out a shuddering breath before he thought better of it. Not good.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Shhh," she said. "I'll be good, I promise. We can lie here and hold one another, can't we, if nothing else? Human comfort can't be against the rules, even if Calypso made them, and she's crueler than me."
"That's debatable," he grumbled, but he turned his cheek into her light caress, and tried to content himself with that alone.
He thought they would never in a hundred decades fall asleep like that, every nerve attuned and tense to one another's proximity, to their bodies side by side. But he soon grew drowsy under her touch, the day's exertions and the evening's emotions taking their toll, and eventually he slept.
He dreamed of Will leaning down to kiss his forehead, and then, lightly, his lips; his lover's face had changed subtly, his skin shimmering in the underwater light like a fish's iridescent scales, his hair ropy as seaweed. Jack tasted the salt of the sea in his kiss.
"Take care of her," Will said, cool fingers interlacing through Jack's.
"Who, Elizabeth?" Jack asked, and then cursed himself for slow stupidity and his tongue for over-quickness. But Will only smiled, and shook his head.
"You'll see," he said, smugly amused as only Will Turner at his best could be. "'Til then, my love…"
"Wait," Jack said, but Will receded from him; or rather, Jack was pulled away, rolled by a wave up onto the shore of waking.
He opened his eyes to find the bed empty of all but Elizabeth's scent, blood and saltpeter and roses. He had slept past dawn, and she had already gone out with the tide.
Fandom: PotC
Disclaimer: Property of Disney, appropriated without permission for my own horrible ends, which do not, however, include profit.
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, m-preg, language
Pairings: Jack/Will. Jack/Bootstrap alluded to. Jack/Elizabeth. Non-sexual Will/Elizabeth. Elizabeth/Barbossa suggested.
Summary: Will Turner must sail as the Flying Dutchman's captain for ten years, after which he can return to the world if his lover Jack Sparrow stays true. Meanwhile, Jack finds himself in a delicate condition. Will the King of the Pirates help him--or take advantage of him?
Note: This part is a tiny bit more serious in some ways than the last. Still crack, though. Still not intended to offend. For full warning and intro, see Part 1. Last part will probably go up this weekend, as school starts tomorrow.
Feedback: I will philosophically accept any complaints and have reserved a spot in the handbasket-direct to the Special Hell. In my defense, crack isn't nearly as much fun when you don't share it.
The Captain's Vessel, Part 1
The Captain's Vessel
Second Trimester
"Why, Cap'n, you're-you're-"
"You'd better come in," Elizabeth interrupted. She grasped Ragetti by his outstretched arm, dragged him into the cabin, and slammed the door, throwing the bolt and leaning against it.
"Would it kill you to knock?" Jack demanded, fairly shaking with rage and humiliation. "Feculent maggot! This is a pirate ship, man, not some lady's garden party to go waltzing about in at your whim!"
"Sorry, Cap'n!" Ragetti backed up, but Elizabeth's hand fell on his shoulder and gripped it, hard, and he quailed away from her, caught between the two of them. "Didn't mean to intrude, truly I didn't! But 'ow was I to know you'd be, er, indisposed?"
Elizabeth was shaking, too, but with suppressed laughter; Jack glared at her, and she gained control of herself with what appeared to be some difficulty. "Now, Ragetti," she said, like the kindly monarch that she wasn't granting mercy to a condemned man, "it may in truth be fortunate that you've been let in on Captain Sparrow's secret. We-and that includes the Captain of the Flying Dutchman-will be deeply indebted to you for your help."
"Really?" Ragetti's glance darted from one to the other, but he looked hopeful. "'Ow's that?"
"I'll tell you," Elizabeth said soothingly, "but before I do, it's very important that you don't breathe a word about this to anyone. Understand?"
Her hand must have tightened on his shoulder, for Ragetti winced and gulped, bobbing his head.
"Good," said the King of the Pirates. "Because Jack will need someone to look after him during his confinement, and I think you're just the man for the job."
"Look after him?" Ragetti said, staring. "You mean, like a nursemaid or such? In petticoats, and all that?"
"Look after me?" Jack growled, at the same time. "Look here, woman, I don't need any looking after! And what do you mean, confinement?"
"You can wear petticoats if you like," Elizabeth told Ragetti, whose face broke into a gap-toothed grin at the prospect. "As for you," she said to Jack, "you didn't think you could keep sailing in your delicate condition, did you? If you think you're showing now, just wait a few months! And even if you can fool the rest of the crew, the sudden appearance of a newborn will certainly give you away."
"If you think I'm staying in Shipwreck Cove with Teague and his musty old Code, you're wrong." Jack shuddered to think of what his old sire would say to this new development. Knocked up, are you, Jackie boy? Always knew you'd come to a bad end, putting on airs like you do, and you too pretty by half. No, it didn't bear thinking of.
"I thought you might want to be near family," Elizabeth said, and looked surprised at his strangled noise of denial. "But if you'd rather not, I can find you a nice little cottage somewhere quiet and out of the way."
When she put it like that, he didn't quite know which option sounded worse.
If only Will were here, he found himself thinking, and immediately wished the thought away. But it didn't matter. At that moment, he would have given his eyeteeth-the gold ones, too-just to feel his beloved's strong arms around him, to hear that warm, low voice in his ear telling him it would be all right. Maybe Will would kneel and put his cheek to Jack's belly, listening to the movement of the little creature within, and then kiss his way lower-
"Jack! Jack, are you all right?" Elizabeth said. She laid a hand on his arm. "I was just saying I thought I knew the perfect place for you to have the baby."
"You looked a bit woozy, there, Cap'n," Ragetti said officiously. "Why don't ye 'ave yourself a seat," offering one of Jack's own chairs.
"I'm fine," Jack snapped, waving Ragetti away, and shook off Elizabeth's arm.
"'Ere!" said Ragetti, aggrieved. "We was just tryin' to help."
"I told you I don't need help," Jack said, and found himself once again engaged in a valiant struggle to keep from bursting into inexplicable tears.
Elizabeth and Ragetti exchanged knowing looks, but Jack, biting his lip to keep it from trembling, pretended not to notice.
* * *
"Ow," Jack said, grimacing, and collapsed gratefully onto the bed, which he had to admit was far more comfortable than the one in the Black Pearl's cabin, let alone the hammock he'd been sleeping in half the time. He couldn't exactly plead his belly against Barbossa's concept of sharing, and he hadn't gotten much sleep away from Will's chest, anyway. Now the chest was safely stowed under the floorboards of the cottage, beneath the bed; if he lay still enough, he could hear its steady beat.
Elizabeth turned from the window, where she'd been fussing with the curtains; for a moment, she almost looked domestic, if one could ignore the weapons bristling at her belt, the breeches, the boots, the hat, and everything else about her. "What's the matter now? I didn't think the walk would be too far."
Jack, who was still trying to catch his breath after their trek from the little cove to the lone cottage on the bluffs, glowered at her. "I hurt. Everywhere. And the little monster keeps kicking me in the kidneys."
"I'd get used to that, if I were you," she said, with less sympathy than he thought appropriate. She dropped into a crouch by the big chest in the corner and threw it open, apparently to take inventory of the linens provided by her orders. "I'll have Ragetti make up a fire in here and brew you some tea."
"I'd rather have rum," he said, petulantly.
"I'm not sure rum is good for babies."
"This is my baby," Jack said. "Rum is most certainly good for it….What was that look for?"
"Nothing," she said, and then, "You finally said it was yours, that's all."
"Not as if I had any choice in the matter." He grunted as the thing kicked again. "Buggering hell. Are you sure this how it's supposed to work?"
"Don't ask me," Elizabeth said, irritably. "I've never done it before, either."
"But you're a--" he sketched vague curves in the air.
"A woman? So you've noticed, then."
"I did notice."
"Jack, we're not like birds," she said, over this; she didn't even seem to register his leer. He supposed it was less effective coming from a pregnant…person. "We're not born with this kind of knowledge by instinct. Besides," she eyed his swollen figure, "I'm not sure this is going to work the way it would for me. If it works at all."
That sounded vaguely ominous. "What do you mean?"
She sat back on her heels, sighing. "You're not made to have babies, Jack."
He rolled his eyes. "Your insight is inescapable, darling." But before he could continue, he caught a glimpse of her face, and a chill ran down his spine. "You think this could kill me, don't you?"
"I told you. I don't know."
"But you're worried. And I'm flattered. But also worried."
"I know," she said. She looked as tired as he felt. "I'm sorry."
He dropped his head back down on the pillow. "This isn't fair," he said.
"Women die in childbirth all the time," she said. "And no, it's not fair. It's just the way it is. For us. And now for you." She stood, stared down at him for a moment, her face a cipher. "Ever get a woman with child in your long career, Jack?"
He frowned. "I don't recall, love. Never stayed 'round long enough to find out, I'm afraid."
Her smile seemed to hurt her. "Well," she said, "now you know what that's like, don't you."
Before he could answer, she had turned and strode out of the room. Jack stared after her, and then up at the ceiling.
"And I thought I was the one who was supposed to be moody…"
* * *
"No," Jack said. "Absolutely not. No bloody leeches. I won't have some condescending physician poking about my parts and making me the subject of his scientific diagrams. And he wouldn't know what to do about it anyway. It's not as if this has ever happened before!"
"Zeus bore Athena," Elizabeth offered.
"Who sprang fully formed from his head, if you remember. Hardly likely in my case."
"It does seem a little impractical," she said. "But it puts this--" waving a hand at the bulk of his stomach-- "in some perspective, doesn't it?"
"Somehow, I'm not finding it very comforting, however."
Ragetti cleared his throat. "What about Loki?" he said. "One of those Scandinavian gods, 'e was. Had a babe of 'is own, according to the stories. 'Course, 'e were a horse at the time. A lady horse."
There was a little silence. Jack and Elizabeth glanced at each other, then at Ragetti, who cringed away from their twinned glare.
"What? Just thought I'd share my knowledge of the pertinent mythology!"
"Please don't," said Jack. "Now, are there any solutions for this that don't involve me turning into a mare or splitting my skull open?"
Elizabeth sighed, pressing her palms to her eyes. "I think we should assume, Jack, that whatever power has seen fit to get you this way has provided the means and the method to see it through."
"That's all very well for you," said Jack, "but it's not you who's to be that means, is it? Me, I'd prefer a little more certainty than blind faith in my corner, if you please."
"Well," Elizabeth said, "I'm afraid that's about all we have." She contemplated him, frowning slightly. "Still, I wish you'd consider the doctor. You could be a famous case, you know. A medical mystery for generations of alchemists and scholars."
"And not the sort of fame I like to cultivate, thanks very much."
"Just a thought," Elizabeth said, with a shrug; but she seemed abstracted, as if pursuing some elusive idea to its logical conclusion.
He hoped it was a good one, but knowing her mind as he did, he wasn't sure he wanted to know the specifics.
* * *
"You gave Barbossa the Pearl?" Jack fairly shrieked.
"Traded her to him, to be precise," Elizabeth said. "Put the pistol away, Jack. Waving it at me won't do you a whit of good, I'm afraid. The deal's sealed and done."
He sputtered. "What right have you to trade away my ship?"
"King," she said, with abominable complacency. "You didn't think I'd do all this for nothing, did you? Besides, the question of title has remained unresolved, and you know you won't be in any shape to sail for awhile. Aren't you going to ask what I got for her?"
"A soul might do you good," he retorted, "but Hector hasn't got much in the way of one, either."
"This is much better, anyway," she said, triumphantly, and drew out the thing she'd been hiding behind her back, unrolling it with a flourish. "Sao Feng's chart. It doesn't only show the way to the end of the world, you know."
He frowned. "Er, Elizabeth? I mean, Your Majesty? I think you were cheated."
"What do you mean?" She followed his gaze to the gaping hole in the center of the chart. "Oh! That. I decided I better keep the relevant part concealed on my person, in case Captain Barbossa decides to…unilaterally dissolve our new partnership." An odd little smile crossed her face. "He's a fine old gentleman of fortune, but I know better than to trust him. So I said to myself, what would Jack do?"
"And your answer was 'mutilate ancient and arcane works of the navigational art'?" Jack said scornfully. "It's rather depressing, how little you people know me." But he was fighting a crashing numbness as he spoke. Not only had she seen fit to barter away his Black Pearl-which was only to be expected, after all; pirate-she was leaving him to do this all alone. She and Barbossa-and the way she spoke of the old reprobate, with admiration and something approaching affection! But maybe this was to be expected, as well. Jack knew the Pirate King's appetites as well as any; in fact, he thought with a bitterness that surprised him, he'd be a fool to expect differently. "So you're off, then, you and Hector? A right pair of peas in a pod, you are. And me stranded in this godforsaken place."
She had the grace to look ashamed, rolling up the chart slowly and stroking the worn bamboo slats with restless fingers, her gaze anywhere but meeting his. "I knew you wouldn't understand," she said. "But I can't stay, Jack. I'm the King. I have a reputation to maintain these days…and anyway, you've got Ragetti." She paused, wincing slightly; the one-eyed pirate could be heard from the other room, wheezing a ribald sea chanty as he attacked the washing from supper with gusto. "This way, I can prevail on Hector to bring the Pearl back to you when you're ready to be her Captain again. If you decide that's what you want." She glanced up at last. "I'm sorry, Jack."
"No, you're not," he said roughly. He turned away to the window of the little cottage; outside, the sun had just begun to dip below the horizon, setting the ocean awash in a bloody crimson light, and he closed his eyes for a moment so that he would not look for a green flash. Ten years. "I understand all too well, Elizabeth," he said, to the fading sky. "You were meant to be free, not anchored to one harbor or one heart. If our places were somehow reversed…"
"It's my nature," she said, but he was right, of course; she didn't sound as though she regretted it. "We sail tomorrow morning, with the tide."
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Then stay tonight."
"What?"
"You heard me," he said, pleased to have gotten a rise out of her for once.
"Jack, I-"
"Yes, you can," he said. "King, remember? You can do exactly what you want, when you want to."
"Who says I want to?" she said, but she looked uncertain.
"If it's the curse you're worried about," he said quietly, "I know the consequences as well as you. Better, I daresay. You can trust me to behave myself."
"Yes," she said, "you wouldn't risk Will's future, would you?" The room had sunk into twilight, and in the shadows he couldn't quite make out her expression; so her next words shocked him into silence. "But would you trust me, Jack?"
Never, he wanted to say, or perhaps, unreasonably, always. But she had stepped towards him in the half-light, until he could see what was in her eyes, and recognize it. It had smoldered for a long time. Since before he'd died. Since that night on the rumrunner's island, what seemed a lifetime ago but was really only a few short years.
Fire.
"I wouldn't have thought that would be a problem, Lizzie," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. "I'm not much of a man, these days, for you to find desirable."
She laughed. It had an edge on it, that laugh, chilling and heating his blood all at once. She was so close that he could have touched her; but he fancied he'd cut himself, and did not. "And in the penny dreadfuls you can find on the streets of any port," she said, "you'll learn I'm hardly a natural female. Haven't you heard the stories?"
He had, vaguely: she was a virago, a harpy, a witch, an insatiable hermaphrodite. She captured wayward sailors and kept them for her harem-or had them for supper with a fine Tuscan Chianti. She had cut off her own right breast so that she could shoot a rifle more easily; the tale-teller had been cribbing rather shamelessly, that day. She had let her lover become Davy Jones rather than be bound in marriage to any man. She had fed another lover to a Kraken to win a bet with the Devil. Her legend, thus amended, had flown enviably fast and far; not without, he suspected, some encouragement by its subject.
"I know what you are, Elizabeth Swann," he said. "I've always known."
"And is that what you want in your bed tonight?" she said, still sharp as knives. "I'll not play your poor man's substitute for Will, nor any man; nor any woman, if it comes to that."
"So much pride," he said, "and you'll have mine as well?"
"And you have him, and he has you; and what of me?" She said it lightly, as if quoting a farce, but now he knew those knives, and how to brave them.
"Come to bed, my Liege," he said; and took her hand, giving her his best cheeky grin. "Maybe you could rub me back while you're at it, eh?"
"Incorrigible wretch," she said, with a snort. "You should be so lucky."
But when he lay down on the bed, she lay behind him, and after a minute he felt her fingers along his spine, kneading the knotted muscles there. Her touch was firm, and oddly impersonal; when he groaned a little as the tension released, she hesitated briefly before continuing.
When her hands stilled, he held his breath, but she didn't move away; instead, she draped her arm over him, her palm lightly splayed across the round of his stomach. Chaste enough, but his skin seemed extra-sensitive, acutely awake, and he could feel her small breasts pressing soft against his shoulders, her warm breath stirring his hair.
"Jack?" she said finally.
"Mmm?"
"What is it like, really?"
"What is what like?"
"This," and she stroked his belly lightly; he shivered. "Carrying his child. Being his….Being chosen."
Being loved. He heard the unspoken question, found himself as much at a loss to answer it as the other. "It's…well, it's like nothing on Earth," he said. "Like me own body isn't mine to control anymore. Me mind, too, if it comes to that. A bit like madness. But…" He cleared his throat, searching for words to express this alien emotion. "It's not all bad, honestly. When I think about this scrap of…life growing inside me, feeding off me, taking over me impulses…it's like a miracle, innit? I belong to the little beastie now. And what doesn't belong to it, belongs to Will Turner. I'm good with it."
He felt her draw back a little, then. "Some miracle," she muttered. He rolled onto his back so he could see her face; she had propped herself on one elbow to consider him, and she seemed strangely gripped by some strong emotion, regret or revulsion. "All this talk of whom you belong to….Jack, I remember you told me once you held nothing more dear than your freedom. Have you really changed so much?"
He swept one hand down his body. "See for yourself, O King." But she looked so troubled that he relented. "'Tis a different kind of freedom, Lizzie. You couldn't understand it. Oh, you might someday, if you let nature take its course. But tell me, darling…do you really miss my selfishness?"
"I think 'tis but a different kind of selfishness, now," she said, with a short laugh. "So, no. Perhaps I don't miss it, for all that." And then her eyes sparked with sudden mischief, raking along his supine figure. "Tell me, Jack," she said slyly. "Just how much have you changed? Shall I see for myself, as you say?"
Her hand brushed lightly over his knee to rest upon his thigh; and instantly he found himself caught between warring instincts and keenly aware of his own vulnerability, as she must surely have been. It was Will he loved, he thought frantically, and not this wild, untamable woman, who had taken and betrayed him to his death, who would never stay and never give her heart to anyone, figuratively or literally. But she was here and touching him, and Will was not; and the way she smiled down at him, slow and wicked, knotted desire hot and tight and low in his groin, even though he could not decide if the smile was malicious or merely self-satisfied. Perhaps a little of both.
"So there is one thing that has not changed, after all," she murmured. He wondered if she could see the outline of his cock straining against his breeches; he could not, for his swollen belly obscured his view.
"You look," he said, "as if you are wondering if I have grown a quim for you to fuck." And his voice rasped unevenly over the words, for he hadn't anticipated the rush of arousal that accompanied them, nor the flash of the same in her eyes, the brief spasmodic tightening of her fingers as he spoke.
"Will didn't need one," she said, and her own voice shook just a little. "Why should I? But I must admit to the thought that this baby must find its way out of you somehow, and surely…"
"You mean, I may be loose, but surely I'm not so loose as that?" He managed almost the right tone, deliberately harsh, though he thought of how those slender fingers might twist inside him and was very nearly lost.
She winced. "I didn't think that," she said, removing her hand; he immediately missed its pressure and warmth. And its promise. "I'm sorry. I…forgot myself."
He caught her wrist, holding it easily; for all her formidable power, not least over him, she was still a woman and his was still a man's strength. "Did you?" he said softly. "You are in all things cruel, Elizabeth Swann, but this may be the cruelest yet. I said I know you."
"And you also know we can't," she said; she sounded desperate, maybe even afraid-of him of or herself, he couldn't guess. "It would be crueler still if I…Jack, don't ask me to. Think of Will."
"Will," he said, "is very far away." He released her, turned his head away from her on the pillow, fighting a rising sense of desolation. "You asked what you have in all this," he said, when he could speak. "Let it be known, love, that I don't have much more. Not where it counts, at least. He's not here."
"I know," she whispered. "Oh, my dear. I know." And she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, cradling his head to her breast as if he were a child, stroking back the tangle of hair and baubles that fell over his face in a mass; he let out a shuddering breath before he thought better of it. Not good.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Shhh," she said. "I'll be good, I promise. We can lie here and hold one another, can't we, if nothing else? Human comfort can't be against the rules, even if Calypso made them, and she's crueler than me."
"That's debatable," he grumbled, but he turned his cheek into her light caress, and tried to content himself with that alone.
He thought they would never in a hundred decades fall asleep like that, every nerve attuned and tense to one another's proximity, to their bodies side by side. But he soon grew drowsy under her touch, the day's exertions and the evening's emotions taking their toll, and eventually he slept.
He dreamed of Will leaning down to kiss his forehead, and then, lightly, his lips; his lover's face had changed subtly, his skin shimmering in the underwater light like a fish's iridescent scales, his hair ropy as seaweed. Jack tasted the salt of the sea in his kiss.
"Take care of her," Will said, cool fingers interlacing through Jack's.
"Who, Elizabeth?" Jack asked, and then cursed himself for slow stupidity and his tongue for over-quickness. But Will only smiled, and shook his head.
"You'll see," he said, smugly amused as only Will Turner at his best could be. "'Til then, my love…"
"Wait," Jack said, but Will receded from him; or rather, Jack was pulled away, rolled by a wave up onto the shore of waking.
He opened his eyes to find the bed empty of all but Elizabeth's scent, blood and saltpeter and roses. He had slept past dawn, and she had already gone out with the tide.