ok so pretend Weatherby Swann is alive, Will is not bound to the Dutchman, Jack has the Pearl back, and they all lived happily ever after.
***
"And why, exactly, are you doing this?" My father glared at me, his hazel eyes glowering from under his thick beetle brows.
"I don't like living here. I love you, and I love Elizabeth, but I cannot stand to be a 'lady' any longer." I shoved clothes - functional ones - into a canvas bag, steadily avoiding the glare.
"And what do you intend to do, run off and become a pirate? You're a woman of twenty-two, for God's sake! You'll never make it." He was condescending. It irritated me.
"Yes, actually, that is exactly what I intend to do." I snapped, grabbing my sword from under the bed. My father gaped in astonishment at its appearance. It gratified me that, having owned it for over a year, he still didn't know I had it – or could use it, for that matter. I also grabbed the pistol, which I had never used but knew how.
"What on earth…" He was speechless as I swept past him and out the door, my long black braid nearly hitting him. "Adelaide! Stop right there!"
I kept going.
He grabbed my arm, exerting enough force to stop me - temporarily. "Where did you get a sword and pistol, and these men's clothes, and such an unladylike frame of mind?"
I finally looked at him, letting the suppressed spirit that had been building up for years burn through into my sapphire gaze for the first time. "Will gave me the sword, in addition to teaching me how to use it, I stole the clothes and pistol, and you, sah, gave me this bloody frame of mind!"
He took a step back from me at the look on my face, horrified at this list of wrongdoing I was throwing in his face. "You stole them?! I... stole them?" He was flustered - good.
"Aye. And my name is Addi, you ought to know that by now." I was slipping easily into my alternate personality, the one that I adopted everyday at the docks – talking, drinking, and occasionally fighting with sailors and if I was lucky, pirates. I clattered down the grand staircase and into the foyer, hoping to make it to the door before he employed a bit more physical force.
He was looking at me like I was a common criminal. "I took you in! Off the streets! And this is how you repay me?"
"Ye took me in because Elizabeth begged you to. Ye took me in because you had no choice." Before he could stop me, I ran – out the door, down the cobblestone drive, and down the hill - into the Port itself.
***
I burst through the door of the Turner's home, scaring the bejezus out of Elizabeth, who was sitting in the front room, mending a shirt of Will's.
"Addi!" she exclaimed. "What on earth?"
"Why does everybody kept saying that?" I muttered under my breath, looking urgently around for her noticeably absent husband. "Where's Will?"
"In the shop. Did you get in a fight with Father?" She took in my sword, tucked under my arm, and my men's clothes, hanging loosely on my slimly muscled frame.
"Aye. I told him I'm leaving. He didn't take it quite as well as I had hoped."
"Oh, Addi…" Elizabeth, rolled her eyes, presumably at my tactlessness. She knew my hopes and dreams - to become a pirate and to sail with her one-time companion, Jack Sparrow – but she obviously didn't think I should have actually told Weatherby Swann that. "Tell me you didn't mention Jack."
"I didn't."
"Good. That would have set him off."
"I know. Has Will gotten word?"
"I don't know. He was down at the docks today; he might've heard if the Pearl was making port."
I shoved the sword, pistol, and bag into her arms. "Do not lose these." I growled, taking off running, out the back door and into the shop.