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CREATION

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There's nothing he loves more, after a sweaty, laughing romp in bed, then to lie curled up with his head supported on the sleeping innkeeper's belly, thinking about the creation that could be going on inside her.

Though Barbossa will not confess it to a soul, the prospect of fathering a child upon his Sophie is an exciting, if slightly frightening, one. "M' seed is now within ye, Dove," he whispers, placing a warm hand flat on her abdomen. "I felt it leave me t' lie bathin' yer secret places; felt ye hold me tight so's it could flow deep." He shifts slightly; kisses her stomach, his tongue flicking into her navel. "What would a child of we two be like, I wonder?"

It's a question he often asks himself as he watches Sophie going about her business or thinks of her when he's at sea.

Whose eyes would their children get; whose hair, whose height? Round like her; slender like him? Would they be gentle, like Sophie, or inclined to his own snappish temper? As all men do, Barbossa would like sons to carry on his name, but he can also see himself as the proud and doting father of daughters, threatening every prospective suitor with instant castration if they don't treat his beautiful girls as the queens they are.

He vaguely remembers pressing his cheek to his own mother's belly, astonished when his sister-to-come whacked him in the face. What would it be like, as Sophie grows large over the months, to feel his own child quicken and kick inside her?

What would it be like, to create life instead of taking it?

Barbossa kisses her stomach, again and again, and plays with her curls, breathing in the rich, dark scent that still hangs in the air from their joining. "Maybe not this night," he murmurs, "but t'morrow, or next week… next month… I've seed enough t' plant in yer womb for whene'er th' time be right…"

"Hector…?" the innkeeper mumbles, her fingertips ruffling his hair.

"Mm?"

"Again?"

Barbossa grins to himself as he feels his body respond to this expression of her desire for him. "Oh, aye…!"

He does not know what will come of this night; perhaps nothing save the memory of shared affection and pleasure, and that will be fine enough. But one day, he hopes, Miss Sophia will kneel at his feet, put her head on his lap, and, with a shy smile, whisper that she has something to tell him: that his seed has finally taken root inside her, as both have secretly hoped it would, and together, they have created a child.

-oOo- FIN -oOo-