New POTC gen fic
Title: A Debt to be Paid
Rating: PG
Characters: Bill and Will, POTC
Disclaimer: Surely you don’t think these belong to me? Nah, they’re Buena Vista’s and Bruckheimer’s
Summary: Does Will Turner still need a father? Bill hopes so.
A/N: Thanks to betas metalkatt, pseudoblu, and the_dala for reading.
Feedback: Is fabulous
“New captain’s bit of a stick, idn’t ‘e?”
“Aye.” A pause. “Least he ain’t Jones, though.”
“True, true.” A tongue clucking. “Hard t’ believe he’s Turner’s. Boy’s mum musta had all th’ sense in that family.”
Answering laughter followed the conversation, drifting away from Bill as Maccus and Percy headed below into the hold, probably to restring hammocks. It was just one task Will had set for his new crew, part of the ongoing inventory of chores the seemingly-sleepless man kept doling out.
Having borne the scorn of most of the crew for the better part of a decade, Bill wasn’t surprised by the comments, nor was he particularly hurt - he knew what he was, what he’d done, and, perhaps most importantly, those things he’d failed to finish in his life. The biggest of those was low in the rigging, brow furrowed over something between his fingers - an all-too-common expression for Will Turner.
Bill’s reunion with his son couldn’t have been worse. Between whipping him, attacking him, and being forced to carve out his still-beating heart to satisfy that goddamned curse, he’d kept his distance since Will returned from his abbreviated honeymoon, silent and granite-jawed. For one so young and recently burdened, he carried his command like a slightly-oversized mantle, whereas Jones had dragged his behind like a bloodied, tattered petticoat. Bill had never met Siobhan’s Irish family, but he knew his own and was pretty certain from wherever Will’s internal fortitude sprang, it wasn’t the Turner side of things.
For exactly one week under Will’s command, Bill had castigated himself for sins he couldn’t change, before deciding he didn’t have to commit them further. From that point, he made a conscious effort to carry out orders, enforce the same in others where he could, and take advantage of odd moments between the backlog of collecting souls to teach Will whatever he noted the boy didn’t already seem to know about sailing a behemoth. His son proved adept and quick, if somewhat detached from it all. Bill had long figured out the sea was not Will’s preferred medium. He was merciful and conscientious, but lacked a certain commitment that it took Bill a while to define.
Desire.
Bill had it in spades. So did Jack Sparrow. Even that girl (Elizabeth, she was his daughter now, he’d do well to remember her name) desired the sea. Will tolerated it. It was the rare man Bill had ever met at sea, treated so favorably by her, who didn’t worship her in return. Then again, he reminded himself, the boy might not look upon his fate as quite so “favorable” as that.
For two months, Bill watched Will, offering no counsel and only advice that consisted of the mechanics of advanced sailing. He really hadn’t had to direct Will’s soul-collection; fact was, the younger man seemed born to the task. He hauled each aboard with characteristic grace, his compassion putting even some of the more truculent people at ease. For those few who continued to resist, Will was not reluctant to pull his sword or level a hard, marble-like stare at the offender. There was a reason, after all, that the Dutchman had a brig for the dead.
After nine weeks, almost to the day of Will’s gory induction as captain, Bill helped an old, gnarled soul aboard. She blinked, but kept her fading eyes steadily on him. “Where’s the captain?” she demanded.
“Busy,” Bill responded, nodding toward port, where Will was now teaching a new crewman how to coax reluctant souls aboard. Technically, the Flying Dutchman didn’t need a crew, but with Jones’s staggering backload, Bill had managed to talk Will out of sending every soul on board off to Fiddler’s Green when he took command.
“I need to give him a message.”
Everyone does, Bill mentally sighed. It was only after he’d opened his mouth to explain death was permanent and no, she couldn’t strike any bargains (an all-too-common plea), that he realized this woman wasn’t frightened. So far, he hadn’t encountered anyone during Will’s tenure who didn’t think the terrifying Davy Jones was still at the helm. “I can speak to him for you,” he offered.
She shook her head, long, thin, white hair floating on the very slight breeze of the underworld. “It is mine to deliver,” she refuted.
“Captain Turner is-“
“It’s from his wife.” She lifted her chin, one brow cocked, daring him to refuse again.
All right, horse of a different color. “Let me get him for you.” Bill crossed the deck, not at all surprised by his hanger-on. Stubborn hag, this one. “Captain!” he called. It didn’t seem odd to him - for some reason, it was a much easier appellation than “son.” “Have a message.”
Will turned, head tilted when he spotted the woman. It’s the eyes, Bill decided. The lad’s mother had those same clear, dark hazel eyes that made a body think she was listening to every word with rapt concentration. “Well?” Will asked, not unkindly, but with the same brusqueness he’d had since coming aboard, as if in a hurry to collect his backlog. Bill thought he needed to pace himself so he didn’t end up with nothing much to do around year six and slowly be driven mad, but he kept this opinion - with many others - to himself.
“I have a message from the pirate king.”
Will blinked and straightened, taking a step forward. For a moment, the mantle fell away and he was simply a parted newlywed, desperate for news of his bride. “Elizabeth,” he breathed, a half-smile creasing his lips. Then the brow furrow was back. “Is she well?”
“My news is only for your ears, Mr. Turner.”
Nobody corrected her with his title. Will glanced around; Bill nodded once. “We can make do for a while by ourselves out here, Captain.”
Will ushered the old woman below into his cabin, newly cleaned and purged of Jones’s macabre trophies. Bill stayed on young Richardson for a moment, taking up where he figured Will had left off, helping him net a couple of souls the right way. When he was reasonably certain the lad wasn’t going to inflict lasting damage (“Calm down, boy, they’re not going anywhere ‘til we take ‘em there”), Bill shuffled back to starboard and went back to work.
It was only after he’d hauled several more souls aboard that it occurred to him how odd it was Will hadn’t returned on deck. When he saw the old woman drift by, bound for the limitless hold with the other souls, and Will nowhere behind, his concern notched up. He waited to collar a passing crewman, handing off his net with a gruff directive to take over, before going below to check on his son.
He let himself in after two knocks, getting no answer. Will sat at his table, hands splayed upon its surface, eyes focused on nothing as he stared across its flat top. Bill approached slowly, stopping a few feet short. “Captain,” he murmured, but received no answer. “William,” he added, softly.
Will whispered something Bill couldn’t make out. He leaned closer, then slowly pulled out another scarred chair and sat upon it, getting down on a level where he might hear better. The scrape of wood upon wood seemed to break Will’s reverie, and he looked up, across at Bill. “She’s with child,” he said, quietly, adding “Elizabeth” as though reminding even himself of her name.
Bill couldn’t help it; he grinned, bringing his palm down flat to smack the tabletop. “God’s teeth!” he exclaimed. “Congratulations are in order!”
Will still seemed dazed. “I’m … not really sure how,” he confessed.
Bill arched a brow. “I’m a bit late for that talk, I admit, but we can give it a go if you think you still need it,” he deadpanned.
The captain of the Flying Dutchman, the still-feared ferryman of the sea’s dead, colored mightily. “I meant, how is that possible? I was-“ He seemed unable to put the rest into words, making a vaguely Sparrowesque circular hand gesture on the air.
Ah, so the lad had honored the fair Elizabeth until he had her vows. Well, it was more than Bill had been able to accomplish with Siobhan, so more power to the kid. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “How’re you able to walk and talk and give orders? Heart was still beating when I put it in the chest; you’re not dead.” He added a wry grin. “I’d say if your ship could still sail, it could still transport cargo, eh?”
When Will stood suddenly, nearly knocking over his chair, Bill sat back, wondering if he’d somehow offended him with the good-natured gibe. But then he rounded the table and crossed to the untouched pipe organ, pausing near it before turning and pacing back toward the table, repeating the motion a few times before speaking. “I didn’t even think!” he exclaimed. “Neither of us did - how were we supposed to know this could happen?”
“Will, lad, settle down.” Bill frowned. “Aren’t you happy?”
“It’s not - I had no right to leave her like that, raising a child herself, stuck like-“ He stopped, staring at Bill, and quieted, turning to walk away.
“Stuck like your mother?” Will stopped, his back to Bill, the expansion of his shoulders belying a deep breath. “What you were going to say, isn’t it?”
He turned, then. “Yes. She was stuck.” He didn’t look the least apologetic, nor did Bill expect him to.
“You think you oughtn’t to’ve been born, then?” he asked anyway.
“That’s not it.” Good, Bill thought. “But I didn’t want - to be like-“
“Me?” Bill hazarded a sure guess. “William, you couldn’t be like me on your worst days. I chose the sea; she certainly didn’t pick me to do her dirty work.”
“Outcome’s the same, though, isn’t it?” Will pointed out. “A child growing up without a father. It’s untenable.”
The things that hadn’t been said for nine weeks were now on the table, and Bill wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Admittedly, it had been pleasant not having to face up to his parental shortcomings out loud. On the other, he would’ve been a fool to believe Will had just magically forgotten his abbreviated childhood, effectively orphaned at the age of ten while his father was being hauled overboard as a sacrifice for the late, unlamented former Captain Jack Sparrow. “It’s not the same thing.” He shook his head. “Kid’s going to grow up knowing who his father is, that he’s somebody, and that it wasn’t his choice to be taken away from his family. His mother’ll not let him forget that.”
“How do you know it’s a him?” Will snapped, crossly.
“Fine. Her mother’ll not let her forget you.”
“Yes, and I didn’t forget you, either - Mum told me you were a respectable, law-abiding citizen!”
“Well, then, imagine how much better it’ll sound when it’s true!” Bill knew he was the one at fault here, but Will was not built for self-pity. If he could do nothing else as a father, maybe he could keep his son from walking the same path of self-loathing he’d trod for so long. “Will, don’t be a fool. That baby’ll be as welcome as cool rain in the Caribbean, and twice as spoiled as old cheese. And your Elizabeth is not going to sit around feeling sorry for herself, or him, or her, or whatever.” He tried to think of a better way to put it. “If she can boss around a surly crew of Chinamen, she can surely wrangle a child.” He leaned forward. “What’s really bothering you? That you’ll not be there?”
“I won’t be there; I won’t be anywhere for the next ten years, except here, roaming between worlds, doing this … penance, while everyone else gets to live up there.” His voice had calmed, but his tone had not. “It’s- Never mind.”
“What? Unfair? Not deserved? Why not?”
Will pulled himself in and scowled. “Why not? Do you think I deserved this?” Bill said nothing, keeping his face impassive. It would do Will no good for someone else to pat him on the head and lament his losses for him.
“What did I do to earn this? Tell me. I did what I promised - keep Elizabeth free and break Jones’s hold over you.” He spread his arms wide, fists clenched. “I didn’t even choose this! Jack put me up to it; hell, he probably didn’t want it anyway. Who would? I even took the blame for his plans, along with my own share. Jack wouldn’t have. Would you have? But I did, and for my honesty I got-“
“This commission,” Bill interrupted. “Captaining a ship made notorious by a bad captain and a worse man, being stuck with the burdens of his neglect.” Will’s mouth moved, as though the very words had been stolen, but he made no sound, so Bill continued. “It’s a hard thing that’s been done, Will, forcing you to single-handedly bring honor and dignity to an abused office. To give comfort and passage to frightened souls in their most terrifying hour, and empathize with their loss and the unfairness of it all.” He watched Will blink and cast his eyes somewhere down in front of him, though not all the way to the floor. “Nobody at sea’s going to die alone and scared at the hand of a monster anymore, Will. They’re not going to linger and hang themselves in their minds any longer than need be for the sins they committed in life. Good people will see their loved ones who’ve already died, instead of floating, roaming forever.”
He gestured at the empty chair, coaxing Will into it, then leaned to the side and reached down into the deep pocket of his greatcoat. “Come, now,” he said, producing the bottle of brandy he’d procured from their last shipwreck, for himself later. Will looked to need it more. “Take a slug, eh? Calm you down, it will.” He slid it across the table’s surface and pressed it into Will’s hand.
Not seeming to pay attention, Will’s fingers eventually closed around it and lifted. He swallowed a couple of drinks and pulled the bottle away. “Brandy?” Bill nodded, and Will shook his head, some of the tension dissolving.
“Hasn’t gone bad, has it?” Bill prodded, adding a smile.
“No, it’s not that.” Will turned the bottle as if searching for the label that wasn’t there. “Just it’s about the only alcohol I can stomach.”
It made Bill feel better to find this sliver of commonality with his son. “Well, you serve under Jack, it pays to develop a taste for something other than rum, since you’ll never get any.” He reached over and tipped the bottle toward him again. “Go ahead and drink up. I’d say you’re overdue.”
His thoughts must’ve shown on his face even as he kept silent, for Will lowered the bottle a moment later and looked at him. “You have something to say?”
“Aye.” It was Bill’s turn to furrow his brow, and he drummed his fingers on the tabletop as he found the words. Plain speech would have to do. “Will … I know, I’ve said, it’s a hard thing’s been done to you. To Elizabeth. Both of you. But fact is, you’ve got to put it behind you, for the crew. For the souls you see to.”
Will’s jaw tightened. “I haven’t burdened anyone with my troubles,” he dismissed curtly, taking another drink.
“You’re carrying them around as plainly as if you shouted them from the crow’s nest.” Bill was blunt; he had never profited from verbal legerdemain the way Jack Sparrow could. “You’re looking in on yourself all the time, up there.” He pointed above for the deck. “That’s all fine and good in here, but you’ve got to see others around you up there. Mix a bit with the crew, make ‘em understand you’re not going to be another Jones to them.”
His son squinted. “Isn’t it a little late for fatherly advice?” he bit off. “Where were you when I could’ve really used all this free concern?”
“I can’t fix what’s been done, but I’m part of the crew, and I see well enough what goes on around me. If you think it’s out of turn, that’s as is, but these are things you should hear.” He softened his tone. “You’re a good captain, Will. The crew, they’re warming up to you; you had ‘em when their barnacles fell off. But I don’t know if you appreciate just how hellish this existence was, under Jones - none of them want to go back to that.” He leaned back. “Unfortunately … whether they have to is all up to you, not them.”
“So I need to playact to satisfy the crew.” Will’s tone was monotone.
“No. But Jones came to resent his job, his charges. That’s the real reason he cut out his heart, went bad. Hated the loss of freedom. Woman was just a convenient excuse.”
“I’m not going to do anything to them like that.” He swirled the bottle just above the tabletop, and Bill heard a gentle slosh that indicated it was half-empty. “But I can’t be something I’m not. I already went through that the last six months, trying to turn pirate.” He shook his head. “I - wasn’t very good at it. Every time I had to strike a bargain, betray someone’s trust, it was like I was watching myself from off to the side. Felt like an imposter.”
“You’re not a pirate, no,” Bill agreed, with no small relief. He’d never wanted that fate for Will; he rather hoped his grandchild would escape it, though with king of the pirates for a mother, it would be prudent to expect otherwise. “But you are a captain, and a good leader. Doesn’t take much - just talk with the crew some more, ask after them. Smile a bit.” He watched Will stare a little too long at the bottle, realizing he was falling into alcohol-induced somnolence. “You have your mother’s capacity for greatness, you know. She was … I didn’t treat her real well.” The unspoken Or you hung between them.
He pushed the bottle away. “What was she like?” Will wondered aloud. “Young, I mean.”
This, Bill could handle. As he told the story of their meeting and brief courtship, he watched Will’s head slip lower and lower until he finally rested the side of it on his arms, crossed on the table. His eyes struggled to remain open a bit longer, fixed on Bill, until Bill noticed they’d shut and Will was breathing evenly and slowly. Quietly, he moved his chair and stood to leave.
Halfway to the door, he hesitated and turned to look back. Shuffling back to Will’s chair, he brushed some curls off his shoulder, back behind it, and lifted his hand, absently stroking his boy’s head through the jade headscarf Calypso had left him. Will moved minutely, shifting his breathing, but remained asleep. It reminded Bill of the few times he’d spent with him as a child, the way he’d fall asleep while Bill told him some sea-story, and he fervently hoped the younger Turners would find a way around their curse for the child to know its father better than Will had known him.
“Night, son,” he murmured, squeezing Will’s shoulder before letting himself out.
Rating: PG
Characters: Bill and Will, POTC
Disclaimer: Surely you don’t think these belong to me? Nah, they’re Buena Vista’s and Bruckheimer’s
Summary: Does Will Turner still need a father? Bill hopes so.
A/N: Thanks to betas metalkatt, pseudoblu, and the_dala for reading.
Feedback: Is fabulous
“New captain’s bit of a stick, idn’t ‘e?”
“Aye.” A pause. “Least he ain’t Jones, though.”
“True, true.” A tongue clucking. “Hard t’ believe he’s Turner’s. Boy’s mum musta had all th’ sense in that family.”
Answering laughter followed the conversation, drifting away from Bill as Maccus and Percy headed below into the hold, probably to restring hammocks. It was just one task Will had set for his new crew, part of the ongoing inventory of chores the seemingly-sleepless man kept doling out.
Having borne the scorn of most of the crew for the better part of a decade, Bill wasn’t surprised by the comments, nor was he particularly hurt - he knew what he was, what he’d done, and, perhaps most importantly, those things he’d failed to finish in his life. The biggest of those was low in the rigging, brow furrowed over something between his fingers - an all-too-common expression for Will Turner.
Bill’s reunion with his son couldn’t have been worse. Between whipping him, attacking him, and being forced to carve out his still-beating heart to satisfy that goddamned curse, he’d kept his distance since Will returned from his abbreviated honeymoon, silent and granite-jawed. For one so young and recently burdened, he carried his command like a slightly-oversized mantle, whereas Jones had dragged his behind like a bloodied, tattered petticoat. Bill had never met Siobhan’s Irish family, but he knew his own and was pretty certain from wherever Will’s internal fortitude sprang, it wasn’t the Turner side of things.
For exactly one week under Will’s command, Bill had castigated himself for sins he couldn’t change, before deciding he didn’t have to commit them further. From that point, he made a conscious effort to carry out orders, enforce the same in others where he could, and take advantage of odd moments between the backlog of collecting souls to teach Will whatever he noted the boy didn’t already seem to know about sailing a behemoth. His son proved adept and quick, if somewhat detached from it all. Bill had long figured out the sea was not Will’s preferred medium. He was merciful and conscientious, but lacked a certain commitment that it took Bill a while to define.
Desire.
Bill had it in spades. So did Jack Sparrow. Even that girl (Elizabeth, she was his daughter now, he’d do well to remember her name) desired the sea. Will tolerated it. It was the rare man Bill had ever met at sea, treated so favorably by her, who didn’t worship her in return. Then again, he reminded himself, the boy might not look upon his fate as quite so “favorable” as that.
For two months, Bill watched Will, offering no counsel and only advice that consisted of the mechanics of advanced sailing. He really hadn’t had to direct Will’s soul-collection; fact was, the younger man seemed born to the task. He hauled each aboard with characteristic grace, his compassion putting even some of the more truculent people at ease. For those few who continued to resist, Will was not reluctant to pull his sword or level a hard, marble-like stare at the offender. There was a reason, after all, that the Dutchman had a brig for the dead.
After nine weeks, almost to the day of Will’s gory induction as captain, Bill helped an old, gnarled soul aboard. She blinked, but kept her fading eyes steadily on him. “Where’s the captain?” she demanded.
“Busy,” Bill responded, nodding toward port, where Will was now teaching a new crewman how to coax reluctant souls aboard. Technically, the Flying Dutchman didn’t need a crew, but with Jones’s staggering backload, Bill had managed to talk Will out of sending every soul on board off to Fiddler’s Green when he took command.
“I need to give him a message.”
Everyone does, Bill mentally sighed. It was only after he’d opened his mouth to explain death was permanent and no, she couldn’t strike any bargains (an all-too-common plea), that he realized this woman wasn’t frightened. So far, he hadn’t encountered anyone during Will’s tenure who didn’t think the terrifying Davy Jones was still at the helm. “I can speak to him for you,” he offered.
She shook her head, long, thin, white hair floating on the very slight breeze of the underworld. “It is mine to deliver,” she refuted.
“Captain Turner is-“
“It’s from his wife.” She lifted her chin, one brow cocked, daring him to refuse again.
All right, horse of a different color. “Let me get him for you.” Bill crossed the deck, not at all surprised by his hanger-on. Stubborn hag, this one. “Captain!” he called. It didn’t seem odd to him - for some reason, it was a much easier appellation than “son.” “Have a message.”
Will turned, head tilted when he spotted the woman. It’s the eyes, Bill decided. The lad’s mother had those same clear, dark hazel eyes that made a body think she was listening to every word with rapt concentration. “Well?” Will asked, not unkindly, but with the same brusqueness he’d had since coming aboard, as if in a hurry to collect his backlog. Bill thought he needed to pace himself so he didn’t end up with nothing much to do around year six and slowly be driven mad, but he kept this opinion - with many others - to himself.
“I have a message from the pirate king.”
Will blinked and straightened, taking a step forward. For a moment, the mantle fell away and he was simply a parted newlywed, desperate for news of his bride. “Elizabeth,” he breathed, a half-smile creasing his lips. Then the brow furrow was back. “Is she well?”
“My news is only for your ears, Mr. Turner.”
Nobody corrected her with his title. Will glanced around; Bill nodded once. “We can make do for a while by ourselves out here, Captain.”
Will ushered the old woman below into his cabin, newly cleaned and purged of Jones’s macabre trophies. Bill stayed on young Richardson for a moment, taking up where he figured Will had left off, helping him net a couple of souls the right way. When he was reasonably certain the lad wasn’t going to inflict lasting damage (“Calm down, boy, they’re not going anywhere ‘til we take ‘em there”), Bill shuffled back to starboard and went back to work.
It was only after he’d hauled several more souls aboard that it occurred to him how odd it was Will hadn’t returned on deck. When he saw the old woman drift by, bound for the limitless hold with the other souls, and Will nowhere behind, his concern notched up. He waited to collar a passing crewman, handing off his net with a gruff directive to take over, before going below to check on his son.
He let himself in after two knocks, getting no answer. Will sat at his table, hands splayed upon its surface, eyes focused on nothing as he stared across its flat top. Bill approached slowly, stopping a few feet short. “Captain,” he murmured, but received no answer. “William,” he added, softly.
Will whispered something Bill couldn’t make out. He leaned closer, then slowly pulled out another scarred chair and sat upon it, getting down on a level where he might hear better. The scrape of wood upon wood seemed to break Will’s reverie, and he looked up, across at Bill. “She’s with child,” he said, quietly, adding “Elizabeth” as though reminding even himself of her name.
Bill couldn’t help it; he grinned, bringing his palm down flat to smack the tabletop. “God’s teeth!” he exclaimed. “Congratulations are in order!”
Will still seemed dazed. “I’m … not really sure how,” he confessed.
Bill arched a brow. “I’m a bit late for that talk, I admit, but we can give it a go if you think you still need it,” he deadpanned.
The captain of the Flying Dutchman, the still-feared ferryman of the sea’s dead, colored mightily. “I meant, how is that possible? I was-“ He seemed unable to put the rest into words, making a vaguely Sparrowesque circular hand gesture on the air.
Ah, so the lad had honored the fair Elizabeth until he had her vows. Well, it was more than Bill had been able to accomplish with Siobhan, so more power to the kid. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “How’re you able to walk and talk and give orders? Heart was still beating when I put it in the chest; you’re not dead.” He added a wry grin. “I’d say if your ship could still sail, it could still transport cargo, eh?”
When Will stood suddenly, nearly knocking over his chair, Bill sat back, wondering if he’d somehow offended him with the good-natured gibe. But then he rounded the table and crossed to the untouched pipe organ, pausing near it before turning and pacing back toward the table, repeating the motion a few times before speaking. “I didn’t even think!” he exclaimed. “Neither of us did - how were we supposed to know this could happen?”
“Will, lad, settle down.” Bill frowned. “Aren’t you happy?”
“It’s not - I had no right to leave her like that, raising a child herself, stuck like-“ He stopped, staring at Bill, and quieted, turning to walk away.
“Stuck like your mother?” Will stopped, his back to Bill, the expansion of his shoulders belying a deep breath. “What you were going to say, isn’t it?”
He turned, then. “Yes. She was stuck.” He didn’t look the least apologetic, nor did Bill expect him to.
“You think you oughtn’t to’ve been born, then?” he asked anyway.
“That’s not it.” Good, Bill thought. “But I didn’t want - to be like-“
“Me?” Bill hazarded a sure guess. “William, you couldn’t be like me on your worst days. I chose the sea; she certainly didn’t pick me to do her dirty work.”
“Outcome’s the same, though, isn’t it?” Will pointed out. “A child growing up without a father. It’s untenable.”
The things that hadn’t been said for nine weeks were now on the table, and Bill wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Admittedly, it had been pleasant not having to face up to his parental shortcomings out loud. On the other, he would’ve been a fool to believe Will had just magically forgotten his abbreviated childhood, effectively orphaned at the age of ten while his father was being hauled overboard as a sacrifice for the late, unlamented former Captain Jack Sparrow. “It’s not the same thing.” He shook his head. “Kid’s going to grow up knowing who his father is, that he’s somebody, and that it wasn’t his choice to be taken away from his family. His mother’ll not let him forget that.”
“How do you know it’s a him?” Will snapped, crossly.
“Fine. Her mother’ll not let her forget you.”
“Yes, and I didn’t forget you, either - Mum told me you were a respectable, law-abiding citizen!”
“Well, then, imagine how much better it’ll sound when it’s true!” Bill knew he was the one at fault here, but Will was not built for self-pity. If he could do nothing else as a father, maybe he could keep his son from walking the same path of self-loathing he’d trod for so long. “Will, don’t be a fool. That baby’ll be as welcome as cool rain in the Caribbean, and twice as spoiled as old cheese. And your Elizabeth is not going to sit around feeling sorry for herself, or him, or her, or whatever.” He tried to think of a better way to put it. “If she can boss around a surly crew of Chinamen, she can surely wrangle a child.” He leaned forward. “What’s really bothering you? That you’ll not be there?”
“I won’t be there; I won’t be anywhere for the next ten years, except here, roaming between worlds, doing this … penance, while everyone else gets to live up there.” His voice had calmed, but his tone had not. “It’s- Never mind.”
“What? Unfair? Not deserved? Why not?”
Will pulled himself in and scowled. “Why not? Do you think I deserved this?” Bill said nothing, keeping his face impassive. It would do Will no good for someone else to pat him on the head and lament his losses for him.
“What did I do to earn this? Tell me. I did what I promised - keep Elizabeth free and break Jones’s hold over you.” He spread his arms wide, fists clenched. “I didn’t even choose this! Jack put me up to it; hell, he probably didn’t want it anyway. Who would? I even took the blame for his plans, along with my own share. Jack wouldn’t have. Would you have? But I did, and for my honesty I got-“
“This commission,” Bill interrupted. “Captaining a ship made notorious by a bad captain and a worse man, being stuck with the burdens of his neglect.” Will’s mouth moved, as though the very words had been stolen, but he made no sound, so Bill continued. “It’s a hard thing that’s been done, Will, forcing you to single-handedly bring honor and dignity to an abused office. To give comfort and passage to frightened souls in their most terrifying hour, and empathize with their loss and the unfairness of it all.” He watched Will blink and cast his eyes somewhere down in front of him, though not all the way to the floor. “Nobody at sea’s going to die alone and scared at the hand of a monster anymore, Will. They’re not going to linger and hang themselves in their minds any longer than need be for the sins they committed in life. Good people will see their loved ones who’ve already died, instead of floating, roaming forever.”
He gestured at the empty chair, coaxing Will into it, then leaned to the side and reached down into the deep pocket of his greatcoat. “Come, now,” he said, producing the bottle of brandy he’d procured from their last shipwreck, for himself later. Will looked to need it more. “Take a slug, eh? Calm you down, it will.” He slid it across the table’s surface and pressed it into Will’s hand.
Not seeming to pay attention, Will’s fingers eventually closed around it and lifted. He swallowed a couple of drinks and pulled the bottle away. “Brandy?” Bill nodded, and Will shook his head, some of the tension dissolving.
“Hasn’t gone bad, has it?” Bill prodded, adding a smile.
“No, it’s not that.” Will turned the bottle as if searching for the label that wasn’t there. “Just it’s about the only alcohol I can stomach.”
It made Bill feel better to find this sliver of commonality with his son. “Well, you serve under Jack, it pays to develop a taste for something other than rum, since you’ll never get any.” He reached over and tipped the bottle toward him again. “Go ahead and drink up. I’d say you’re overdue.”
His thoughts must’ve shown on his face even as he kept silent, for Will lowered the bottle a moment later and looked at him. “You have something to say?”
“Aye.” It was Bill’s turn to furrow his brow, and he drummed his fingers on the tabletop as he found the words. Plain speech would have to do. “Will … I know, I’ve said, it’s a hard thing’s been done to you. To Elizabeth. Both of you. But fact is, you’ve got to put it behind you, for the crew. For the souls you see to.”
Will’s jaw tightened. “I haven’t burdened anyone with my troubles,” he dismissed curtly, taking another drink.
“You’re carrying them around as plainly as if you shouted them from the crow’s nest.” Bill was blunt; he had never profited from verbal legerdemain the way Jack Sparrow could. “You’re looking in on yourself all the time, up there.” He pointed above for the deck. “That’s all fine and good in here, but you’ve got to see others around you up there. Mix a bit with the crew, make ‘em understand you’re not going to be another Jones to them.”
His son squinted. “Isn’t it a little late for fatherly advice?” he bit off. “Where were you when I could’ve really used all this free concern?”
“I can’t fix what’s been done, but I’m part of the crew, and I see well enough what goes on around me. If you think it’s out of turn, that’s as is, but these are things you should hear.” He softened his tone. “You’re a good captain, Will. The crew, they’re warming up to you; you had ‘em when their barnacles fell off. But I don’t know if you appreciate just how hellish this existence was, under Jones - none of them want to go back to that.” He leaned back. “Unfortunately … whether they have to is all up to you, not them.”
“So I need to playact to satisfy the crew.” Will’s tone was monotone.
“No. But Jones came to resent his job, his charges. That’s the real reason he cut out his heart, went bad. Hated the loss of freedom. Woman was just a convenient excuse.”
“I’m not going to do anything to them like that.” He swirled the bottle just above the tabletop, and Bill heard a gentle slosh that indicated it was half-empty. “But I can’t be something I’m not. I already went through that the last six months, trying to turn pirate.” He shook his head. “I - wasn’t very good at it. Every time I had to strike a bargain, betray someone’s trust, it was like I was watching myself from off to the side. Felt like an imposter.”
“You’re not a pirate, no,” Bill agreed, with no small relief. He’d never wanted that fate for Will; he rather hoped his grandchild would escape it, though with king of the pirates for a mother, it would be prudent to expect otherwise. “But you are a captain, and a good leader. Doesn’t take much - just talk with the crew some more, ask after them. Smile a bit.” He watched Will stare a little too long at the bottle, realizing he was falling into alcohol-induced somnolence. “You have your mother’s capacity for greatness, you know. She was … I didn’t treat her real well.” The unspoken Or you hung between them.
He pushed the bottle away. “What was she like?” Will wondered aloud. “Young, I mean.”
This, Bill could handle. As he told the story of their meeting and brief courtship, he watched Will’s head slip lower and lower until he finally rested the side of it on his arms, crossed on the table. His eyes struggled to remain open a bit longer, fixed on Bill, until Bill noticed they’d shut and Will was breathing evenly and slowly. Quietly, he moved his chair and stood to leave.
Halfway to the door, he hesitated and turned to look back. Shuffling back to Will’s chair, he brushed some curls off his shoulder, back behind it, and lifted his hand, absently stroking his boy’s head through the jade headscarf Calypso had left him. Will moved minutely, shifting his breathing, but remained asleep. It reminded Bill of the few times he’d spent with him as a child, the way he’d fall asleep while Bill told him some sea-story, and he fervently hoped the younger Turners would find a way around their curse for the child to know its father better than Will had known him.
“Night, son,” he murmured, squeezing Will’s shoulder before letting himself out.