preserve your memories, they're all that's left you (FIC)
Well, at least you can't say I complain about the Kill Will trend without doing anything about it. watersword's lovely ficcing was the immediate impetus, but I've been turning viva_gloria brilliant Old Bones over in my mind as well (seriously, go read it right now).
Anyway. Remembering the past to an old acquaintance. I'm not actually sure the term 'friend' applies. Title from Simon and Garfunkel. No spoilers for AWE.
Yeah, I totally didn't write my proposal. Or, you know, go to class.
Time It Was
He might have known she would look the same, even after all these years. Then again, he never truly thought he would see her again. More than once he considered making his way back, but the people she shared her island with gave him pause, and he was suspicious of how easy that first journey had been. Sometimes he wonders if there’d been a hand on him, for good or for ill.
If she still has a court of mysteries and oddities, she has left it for this dismal port town. It’s among the more miserable places he has come across in recent times. Ships often dock for fresh water and supplies, but those who control the harbor keep everyone else hungry. There is no business for him here. He plans to make his way out on the first vessel that will take him after he’s had a word with an old acquaintance.
She wends her nimble way through the late-night carousers, he at her heels. He almost loses her when he pauses to slip a roll into the grimy hands of a round-bellied child, as neatly as he picks the pocket of a passing gentleman captain. But she slows, turning down a little side street, and he realizes that she has been aware of him all along.
“Tia Dalma,” he says in a voice more worn with age and use than he cares to admit.
She turns and her unchanged face is a greater shock up close. His heart stalls; for a moment he can feel a younger, stronger self inside this skin.
“William Turner,” she says, inclining her head and smiling at him just as she did then, black still staining her teeth. “De wind, she serve me once ag’in.”
The irony is not lost on him, but he has no substitute for himself at his side. And quite suddenly he feels short of breath. “Let me buy you a drink.”
She allows him to lead her to a dusty tavern, settling her skirts gracefully at a back table. He asks for rum, for the first time in a long time. She orders an ale, then takes a flask from her pocket and adds a few drops of something unidentifiable to her glass. Against the cold, Will thinks, and then starts to laugh because it is an unusually warm night, even for the Indies. She waits for him to get hold of himself, waits for the tale - and naturally, interrupts nearly before he has begun.
“Truth be told, I thought you’d do anyt’ing fer that girl, even after what she done t’Jack.”
Will grimaces into his rum. “Truth be told, so did she. So did I,” he adds softly. “But after I released my father’s soul, I found I’d lost my stomach for the sea. I thought I could make a go at an ordinary life. Elizabeth has always been the smarter of us - she already knew that to be impossible. I suppose that’s why I sneaked away after she and Jack had gone to bed, like a thief in the night.”
“Like de thief you were at heart,” she says, surprised not a whit by his mention of Elizabeth and Jack’s liaison. Well, she knew Jack, after all.
“I denied it for a long time,” he admits, guilt pricking him anew with his attentive audience. This is the one story he has never told, not even to the captain. “Too long. I bought a forge in Barbados, built a fair reputation under the name Smith, married a pretty milliner’s daughter. I may even have loved her, after a fashion.”
She raises an eyebrow, guessing at how this turned out. “But you dreamed de sea.”
“Yes,” says Will, after a long swallow of rum. “I did at that.”
“An’ dey came back for you,” she states matter-of-factly. Will wonders how much of this she knows already, and from where; he knows how badly the legends have mangled the truth. In most he has been written out entirely, overshadowed by the brilliantly mad captain and his bold pirate lass. Some split him into the boy she left for the sea and Jack, and an entirely different man who later came between them. He thinks perhaps that’s a better truth than what truly happened.
“By then, it wasn’t much,” he continues quietly, avoiding her too-knowing gaze. “A few years together, trying to pick up the pieces of what was left. I found what I had been lacking at home, it’s true - but I did miss my wife, and our son, and the daughter I never saw.” Has still never seen, he thinks but doesn’t add - she’d be thirty-two or thereabouts if she still lives, with a husband and family of her own. He tries not to think of young Jack, preferring to remember him as a bright-eyed boy than imagine the man he has become. He knows his own father dwelt on him far too often.
“And it was growing harder to make our way - harder on the Pearl, on all of us. Jack was getting old, not so old as I am now -” They trade smiles edged with bitter humor. “But old and tired, for a pirate. And Elizabeth…” He hesitates, feeling disloyal, but it would be fruitless to edit his speech at this point. “The years and the trials had changed her, in some ways for the worse.”
“I heard dey went down wit’ de Pearl,” says Tia Dalma gravely, and he appreciates the respect. Each tale is more fantastical than the last, these days.
He shook his head, motioning for the serving girl to refill his mug. “Elizabeth did. Jack died of fever a few weeks prior. She was - well, I don’t think he would have left her the ship if he’d known what it would do to her. I was ashore at the time, selling the spices we had left from the last plunder. There were British ships coming, and she…panicked. It might have been all right if not for the storm -” He breaks off in memory, closing his eyes, feeling the rain lash against his face once more. Privately he has always feared she meant to sail out and engage them, not to flee. It made no difference in the end, for they were barely doing well enough to be worth notice.
“Which was worse?” she asks, very quietly. “Lover dying in your arms, or far from your reach?”
He considers this for awhile, then looks at her and flatly replies, “Aye.”
Pity floods her dark eyes, the first hint of emotion he has gotten from her all night. To stave it off, he grounds out the rest. “I sailed with Norrington for awhile, until he retired.” He smiles to see her blink in real surprise. James would have liked her. “Those were easy years, when the grief eased, but I knew they would not last.”
“An’ now you make your living as -what?”
Will spreads his arms wide, half-bowing as best he can. “As a relic from the past. Traveling entertainer - I still have my skill with a sword - and occasional pickpocket. Stealing becomes a habit, you know, although I disagree that it is always easier than honesty.” He shakes a few coins out of his purse onto the table. “And treating beautiful females to a story and an ale.”
She crosses her arms and leans back in her chair, regarding him with charm and interest. He wonders how he could ever have thought her a human woman. “You take a few turns I never would foresee.”
“And how does my destiny look now?” Will wants to know.
Her full lips curve in a smirk. “A man makes him own destiny, Will Turner - but den, ain’t dat de one t’ing Jack Sparrow teach us all?”
Anyway. Remembering the past to an old acquaintance. I'm not actually sure the term 'friend' applies. Title from Simon and Garfunkel. No spoilers for AWE.
Yeah, I totally didn't write my proposal. Or, you know, go to class.
Time It Was
He might have known she would look the same, even after all these years. Then again, he never truly thought he would see her again. More than once he considered making his way back, but the people she shared her island with gave him pause, and he was suspicious of how easy that first journey had been. Sometimes he wonders if there’d been a hand on him, for good or for ill.
If she still has a court of mysteries and oddities, she has left it for this dismal port town. It’s among the more miserable places he has come across in recent times. Ships often dock for fresh water and supplies, but those who control the harbor keep everyone else hungry. There is no business for him here. He plans to make his way out on the first vessel that will take him after he’s had a word with an old acquaintance.
She wends her nimble way through the late-night carousers, he at her heels. He almost loses her when he pauses to slip a roll into the grimy hands of a round-bellied child, as neatly as he picks the pocket of a passing gentleman captain. But she slows, turning down a little side street, and he realizes that she has been aware of him all along.
“Tia Dalma,” he says in a voice more worn with age and use than he cares to admit.
She turns and her unchanged face is a greater shock up close. His heart stalls; for a moment he can feel a younger, stronger self inside this skin.
“William Turner,” she says, inclining her head and smiling at him just as she did then, black still staining her teeth. “De wind, she serve me once ag’in.”
The irony is not lost on him, but he has no substitute for himself at his side. And quite suddenly he feels short of breath. “Let me buy you a drink.”
She allows him to lead her to a dusty tavern, settling her skirts gracefully at a back table. He asks for rum, for the first time in a long time. She orders an ale, then takes a flask from her pocket and adds a few drops of something unidentifiable to her glass. Against the cold, Will thinks, and then starts to laugh because it is an unusually warm night, even for the Indies. She waits for him to get hold of himself, waits for the tale - and naturally, interrupts nearly before he has begun.
“Truth be told, I thought you’d do anyt’ing fer that girl, even after what she done t’Jack.”
Will grimaces into his rum. “Truth be told, so did she. So did I,” he adds softly. “But after I released my father’s soul, I found I’d lost my stomach for the sea. I thought I could make a go at an ordinary life. Elizabeth has always been the smarter of us - she already knew that to be impossible. I suppose that’s why I sneaked away after she and Jack had gone to bed, like a thief in the night.”
“Like de thief you were at heart,” she says, surprised not a whit by his mention of Elizabeth and Jack’s liaison. Well, she knew Jack, after all.
“I denied it for a long time,” he admits, guilt pricking him anew with his attentive audience. This is the one story he has never told, not even to the captain. “Too long. I bought a forge in Barbados, built a fair reputation under the name Smith, married a pretty milliner’s daughter. I may even have loved her, after a fashion.”
She raises an eyebrow, guessing at how this turned out. “But you dreamed de sea.”
“Yes,” says Will, after a long swallow of rum. “I did at that.”
“An’ dey came back for you,” she states matter-of-factly. Will wonders how much of this she knows already, and from where; he knows how badly the legends have mangled the truth. In most he has been written out entirely, overshadowed by the brilliantly mad captain and his bold pirate lass. Some split him into the boy she left for the sea and Jack, and an entirely different man who later came between them. He thinks perhaps that’s a better truth than what truly happened.
“By then, it wasn’t much,” he continues quietly, avoiding her too-knowing gaze. “A few years together, trying to pick up the pieces of what was left. I found what I had been lacking at home, it’s true - but I did miss my wife, and our son, and the daughter I never saw.” Has still never seen, he thinks but doesn’t add - she’d be thirty-two or thereabouts if she still lives, with a husband and family of her own. He tries not to think of young Jack, preferring to remember him as a bright-eyed boy than imagine the man he has become. He knows his own father dwelt on him far too often.
“And it was growing harder to make our way - harder on the Pearl, on all of us. Jack was getting old, not so old as I am now -” They trade smiles edged with bitter humor. “But old and tired, for a pirate. And Elizabeth…” He hesitates, feeling disloyal, but it would be fruitless to edit his speech at this point. “The years and the trials had changed her, in some ways for the worse.”
“I heard dey went down wit’ de Pearl,” says Tia Dalma gravely, and he appreciates the respect. Each tale is more fantastical than the last, these days.
He shook his head, motioning for the serving girl to refill his mug. “Elizabeth did. Jack died of fever a few weeks prior. She was - well, I don’t think he would have left her the ship if he’d known what it would do to her. I was ashore at the time, selling the spices we had left from the last plunder. There were British ships coming, and she…panicked. It might have been all right if not for the storm -” He breaks off in memory, closing his eyes, feeling the rain lash against his face once more. Privately he has always feared she meant to sail out and engage them, not to flee. It made no difference in the end, for they were barely doing well enough to be worth notice.
“Which was worse?” she asks, very quietly. “Lover dying in your arms, or far from your reach?”
He considers this for awhile, then looks at her and flatly replies, “Aye.”
Pity floods her dark eyes, the first hint of emotion he has gotten from her all night. To stave it off, he grounds out the rest. “I sailed with Norrington for awhile, until he retired.” He smiles to see her blink in real surprise. James would have liked her. “Those were easy years, when the grief eased, but I knew they would not last.”
“An’ now you make your living as -what?”
Will spreads his arms wide, half-bowing as best he can. “As a relic from the past. Traveling entertainer - I still have my skill with a sword - and occasional pickpocket. Stealing becomes a habit, you know, although I disagree that it is always easier than honesty.” He shakes a few coins out of his purse onto the table. “And treating beautiful females to a story and an ale.”
She crosses her arms and leans back in her chair, regarding him with charm and interest. He wonders how he could ever have thought her a human woman. “You take a few turns I never would foresee.”
“And how does my destiny look now?” Will wants to know.
Her full lips curve in a smirk. “A man makes him own destiny, Will Turner - but den, ain’t dat de one t’ing Jack Sparrow teach us all?”