Disclaimer. Pirates of the Caribbean, and all its characters, belong to Disney. I'm just borrowing them and making no money at it.
Warning: This story contains Huge spoilers for PoTC: At the World's End. If you haven't seen it and don't want to know how it ended, don't read further.
Time
Is there time amongst those truly dead?
I wish, now, that I'd taken the opportunity to ask Jack, though I don't suppose he was ever dead in the traditional sense of the word. Barbossa, though…he had truly died, and passed to the other shore to which we ferry the poor lost souls. I fear he and I were never on such close terms that I would have thought to ask, even had I foreseen my fate. But I should like to know exactly what lot I so narrowly avoided. Elizabeth's father seemed so serene when we met him, as do the others we carry. Do they yearn for their former lives? Do they remember them, once they reach the other shore? Do they love, and pine for those they've left behind?
Or am I unique in that, as I am in so many other ways?
Ten years. Sometimes it scarcely seems that long; the days go on and on, one like another, differing only in details. Ten years spent getting acquainted with my father; a good man, as I'd always maintained. Ten years spent listening to the crew bicker and dispute, of hearing them mourn their pasts or curse the decades spent under Davey Jones' curse. Of hearing them reminisce over ships taken, or shipmates lost, or women loved or hated, but never forgotten. Ten years of this life blur together as the Flying Dutchman rises out of the water for the first time in years, sailing toward the cove where I'd last seen her.
Ten years suddenly seems an eternity.
I've dreamed of her, all those years. Of the scent of her hair, the way her lips curled just so when she smiled. Of her in short dresses when we were but children, playing at games; in elegant attire, her hair in ringlets, when I'd invented pretenses to drop by the governor's palace. Of the way she'd looked in the dress she wore on the day we were to have been wed, and in the pirate's garb she wore on the day when we actually were. Of her voice, soft and gentle, loud and brash. Of her fingers wrapped around ivory fan sticks, around the hilt of a sword, threaded through my hair as our lips met. Maddening dreams, taunting me with what I couldn't have. Soothing dreams, reminding me of what I'd had once, and would again, if only for a brief span of time.
A flash of green in the sky as the ship broke free of the water, and I fancied I could feel my heart pound within my chest in anticipation. An impossibility, but all things seemed possible today as I reveled in the feel of the sun, of the wind against my skin after long years spent in the stillness of twilight. My eyes sought out a figure on the shore, despite it being entirely likely she'd forgotten me altogether in ten years, just as Calypso had Davey Jones.
I never truly doubted she had, though, just as I never once doubted she still lived. Had she not, we should have been reunited long since.
The illusion of my heart pounding grew ever more pronounced as my eyes caught a vision of blonde hair, drifting upon the wind. So fixed upon her, in fact, that at first I missed the sight of the smaller figure beside her, one of whom I'd never even dreamed. That our last, too brief day had resulted in a child…it hardly seemed likely, but the evidence stood before me, waving, and I felt my hollow chest swell with pride as I took in the sight of my son.
"Go to them, William," my father said, not unkindly, and I glanced back to see his eyes damp with emotion despite the reassuring smile on his face. "Your time's done; another will take your place."
I embraced him, confused by his words, by the strength of his arms as they encircled me as if for the last time. But the hours were fleeting, and after ten years, I had no patience for questions.
After all, Elizabeth was waiting. There would be ten more years to discover just what my father had meant, when this one brief day was done.