When Will can finally go and visit Elizabeth's grave, six years after her death, he is devastated. As Calypso watches her ferryman falling apart, she searches for a solution to his problem, but can only think of one thing: getting Chronos', god of time and destiny, help, for he is the distant ancestor of the Turners and the very reason they always have uncanny fates. Luckily, Chronos thought of the same thing, and together, they send Will back in time, for him to change the destiny of his past self, and, maybe, find happiness as an immortal demigod free of the duty of the captain of the Flying Dutchman.
Well, I don't know how often I will update this. I hope once a month at least, maybe more often.
I'm still wondering if I'm going to end this as a willington story, since, you know, Elizabeth will be with past-Will, and Will and James need to be happy, I'm telling you... But worry not, if I do that, it still won't be the main focus, just a part of the story.
Chapter 1: Grave
William Turner the second set foot on the beach, and he knew he should have felt the relief of one day on land for ten years at sea, but he didn't, and he knew why.
Ten years since last time he come on shore, and this time too, he hadn't aged a day.
His father, Bootstrap Bill, or William Turner the first, put down the oars he had used to row them to the beach. He was still sitting in the dinghy, and this time, he wouldn't get out of it, he wouldn't accompany his son to see his daughter-in-law. Maybe he'd go, later, but he'd leave the first hours of this day to his son.
Bootstrap Bill knew why Will was so moody, and he couldn't blame him.
The older man, though unaging as his son and captain, looked up at the man and woman standing on the beach, not far enough.
William Turner the third was there, waiting in silence. He and his sister, Ann, had waited a long time for the captain of the Flying Dutchman to come.
Obviously, he was Will's son, and really, they should have come up with better, because it was looking more and more like a pattern, the husband away at sea and not there to name his child, and the wife ending up giving their son his father's name. The same thing had happened when Bill had had his son, and now, it was getting confusing.
Junior, they called him that not to get too confused, had become a sailor too, but a merchant, though some said he had been way too good with a sword and too used to the working of an attacking pirate's mind to be honest. And it was the truth. Son of the seas' ferryman, son of the pirate King, Junior was well known amongst the Brethren, not for pillaging and plundering, for he was a honest man, but because no pirate had actually wanted to cross swords with him. Too dangerous an opponent, and too dangerous a father to deal with if they ever managed to kill him.
Junior, too, had had the bright idea to be at sea when his wife had gone into labour, and now they had a fourth William Turner to deal with. A fourth William Turner, who unbelievably had fallen into the same predicament, though because he had been lost at sea at the time, as his namesakes, when his son had been born. Bill usually said there was a curse upon the family that took away their wives' imagination for brand new first names each time their husbands were at see. And with their luck, he could actually be right about it.
Bootstrap then looked at his granddaugther, Ann Jennings, and smiled a bit. He loved the thought of his family, though he rarely had the pleasure to spend time with them.
For all Junior looked like his father and grandfather at his age, or, more accurately, what Will would have looked like if he had ever aged past twenty-one years old, Ann was a perfect mix of her two parents, Will and Elizabeth. Blond, with brown eyes, and determined features, she had soon caught the eyes of many men, some of them respectable as her husband, Philip Jennings, even if there were rumors about the virtue of her mother, who had had two children exactly ten years apart, and had a wedding ring though no husband.
Elizabeth.
Bill's spirit deflated instantly.
He had never had the occasion to know her well, but she was still his son's wife, and when Will had needed to convey a message to her, as always being bound to his ship, he had sent his father. Bootstrap liked his daughter-in-law, and was hurt when he thought...
He had lived the same thing with his own wife, when, while a slave aboard Jones' Flying Dutchman, he had heard she had passed away.
For it was the heart of the problem.
Seventy years had passed since Will had become the captain of the Dutchman. His son was sixty-nine. His daughter was fifty-nine. His grandchildren were all older than he himself looked.
And Elizabeth Turner, Swann by her maiden name, had passed away six years before, at the great age of eighty-five years old. It was already a miracle she had lasted this long.
Elizabeth Turner née Swann was dead.
And Will hadn't been able to visit her grave for six long and painful years.
Captain William Turner went to his children, and hugged them without a word, but his embrace was stiff. Junior and Ann didn't hold it against him. He quickly inquired how they were, how the kids, of all ages, were doing. Will didn't like it when he saw how old and tired his son looked. Junior had stopped going at sea for thirteen years already, and it had been because his wife had threatened him of terrible things if he even went on a single trip around the Caribbean at his age.
Time was running short for everyone, except for Bill and Will, stuck for all eternity on the Flying Dutchman, seeing their family die away and live on at the same time.
Ann et Junior lead him to his wife's grave, and Will stayed behind as they went back inside the house Elizabeth had lived in. He stayed behind, and sat on the very grave of the women he would forever love, and he would have cried, if he had had tears to spill. But for six years now, he had cried every single day, and now he had no tear left.
The grave was made of simple grey stone, but beautifully carved, and Will just sat on it, waiting for the hours to pass by. He gazed at the ocean, behind the grave, and said nothing, for he didn't want to read the words on the grave, to acknowledge them as real.
The ocean and his duty.
Those were the reasons he hadn't been there for his wife's funeral. Those were the reasons he hadn't been there for most of his family's lives. Those were the reasons he would never die, and would never find peace, for he would not force his duty onto anyone else.
He might have been literally heartless, but he was not without feelings. No one should ever have to be the immortal captain of the Flying Dutchman, and yet someone had to be. Someone had to live with the fate of the cursed man he was, and of the cursed man Jones had been.
Will might have laughed bitterly, but for that to happen, he would have had to be able to laugh.
Death was his daily routine, and a relief he'd never know, though he had seen so many souls to the afterworld.
Souls he had sometimes known.
How many of his friends, how many legends had he seen pass away at sea, and how many of those had he never gotten to see one last time, for they had died on land?
He had seen Edward Teague's last moments, he had carried Jack Sparrow to the world of the dead, he had missed Hector Barbossa's execution, and he had heard of Joshamee Gibbs' peaceful depart on the lands behind Tortuga, he had taken Anamaria as a crew member when her fishing boat, gracious gift of Jack, had been outnumbered and slaugthered by a pirate crew.
There was no one he knew from before the curse who was still alive out there.
And Elizabeth was dead.
For decades he had lived only thinking of those days next to her.
What was he to live for, now?
It wasn't as if he had a choice, though.
Centuries and millenia and eternity to live through, the undead carrier of the souls of those who had died at sea. He'd live, but without a reason to live.
William sat through the hours, and the day passed. His father came at a point, and he looked at the grave, and he looked at his son, and he said nothing, and he left.
When the sun began to sink into the ocean, he knew his crew was certainly getting nervous, back on the Dutchman, but he couldn't bring himself to go, he couldn't bring himself to leave. He couldn't care less about his duty, and it didn't matter that in a few minutes, he would be on land when he wasn't supposed to.
He didn't know what would happen once the sun would be gone, leaving the day behind.
He didn't know, and he didn't care.
He stayed there, sitting on his wife's grave.
He gazed at the ocean. He couldn't see it. He couldn't see anything. He only gazed, not focused on anything, as the light was getting scarce, as the day was ending in a scarlet shadow.
And from the ocean, an unseen human form looked back at him.
The woman was dripping salted water, and she had dark skin, and matted black hair. She smiled, showing her black painted teeth. But her smile wasn't quite honest.
Calypso didn't like what was going on.
Captain William Turner had always done his duty. He had complained, sure, but never to anyone, only to himself, and if she knew about it, was because she was the ocean, and she heard everything her ferryman muttered to the sea when he couldn't bear it anymore.
Turner complained, sometimes, but he never grudged anyone for his curse. He was only sad, and after a while, he'd sigh and go back to collecting souls. He was much like Davy Jones had once been, for the first ten years, before he had betrayed her and the charge she had given him, so that they'd be together forever, if not often.
William Turner was a good man, faithful to his wife. William Turner was a good captain, fair with his scarce crew and dedicated to his duty. William Turner deserved better than that.
But Calypso couldn't undo the curse, and the only way to free Captain Turner from his charge was to get someone to stab his heart. The Flying Dutchman needed a captain, and not only because she had said so.
The goddess doubted Will Turner still wanted to live, but she also knew he wouldn't let someone else get cursed to be rid of the curse and rejoin his wife in the afterlife.
If the captain stayed there, on land, even after sunset, the rules of his charge would come down on him. William Turner would be sent into his own locker, if he did stay on land, and he'd suffer loneliness and abandonment until he'd be willing to go back to work. And Calypso could do nothing to help, and she could do nothing to punish, and she could do nothing to force him back onto the Flying Dutchman.
William Turner...
A touch of destiny.
Captain Will Turner had always been marked for a peculiar destiny, and it wasn't by chance. It wasn't by chance that his father had been bounded, first by the Aztec curse, and then to the Dutchman. It wasn't by chance that the Turners were always ones for an extraordinary destiny, even if William Turner had definitely gotten the most extraordinary one out of his family line's.
Calypso could do nothing... but maybe Chronos would be willing to help.
The goddess turned back to look at the sinking sun. She had no time left to waste.
An odd smirk twisted her lips.
No time.
But she was going to buy her ferryman time. He deserved that, at least, and Calypso wasn't a monster, even though she wasn't human. Sometimes she was willing to help people, and not only to drown them.
Her human form was falling apart, into dozens of tiny crabs, and she was going to search for Chronos, but she stopped and went back to a human body.
Turning back towards the shore, Calypso looked at the man standing there.
"You knew already."
The man looked around fifty, but she knew better. He was old, very old, much older than she was, and he was powerful, very powerful, much more powerful than she was. He could look the age he chose, and if he was known as an old man with black wings and a scythe, he didn't usually walk around like that, as she wasn't roaming the world in her gigantic form.
The man smiled.
"I knew already."
Even if he looked young, his hair was still white, and he looked wise beyond his years. No surprise here. His clothes were simple but black and clean, and he stood there, on the beach, between Calypso and the cliff on top of which Elizabeth Turner's grave was, the cliff where the captain of the Flying Dutchman was losing hope once and for all.
"And what do you plan to do?"
Calypso walked out of the water, and stood next to the man.
His brown eyes were nothing remarkable, but they were the exact same shade as those of all the Turners she had seen on her waters, and she knew why. And in those eyes, she could see determination.
"I cannot interfere with mortals' destiny, that is the rule. If the god of time and destiny did, the world would fall apart."
Chronos turned to watch the dark shape of a grave standing in the evening light.
"I have seen too many of my children walk to their destiny without doing anything to help them. As my descendants, though humans, they always had some sort of incredible fate, and most of the time it was not a happy one. And unlike you gods of the sea or the earth or the sky, I could not even attempt to ease their pain. Now, one of them has even partially escaped my grasp, the grasp of time, if not the grasp of destiny."
The immortal captain of the Flying Dutchman, indeed.
Calypso asked her question again, and Chronos answered, this time, a clear answer.
"William isn't human anymore. Or rather, he is and isn't at the same time. What kind of man can live with his heart anywhere else than in his chest? But human or not, he isn't mortal even if he can be killed. Time will not claim him, and so I can interfere."
"You will help him?"
The god laughed lightly.
"Do not appear so surprised, Calypso. You knew I would, and that's why you were going to search for me."
The goddess gave up the pretense, and looked back at the sun, dangerously close to disappear.
"We don't have much time."
Chronos too looked at the sun, and he frowned.
Everything beside them went still. Time had stopped.
The god of time could easily stop the flow of time for all eternity if he wanted to, but when he did so he had no access to his other powers. After all, it was himself he was stopping when he did that.
"What will you do?"
"Moments past are done for, and even I cannot alter them without changing the future. Doing so will erase everything that happened, except for what has been sent through time. Not even us, gods, will know of what futur had once been ours. But I can send him back in time and hope he will be able to prevent his past self to suffer this very destiny."
"He will still be cursed, you know that."
Chronos smiled, and Calypso wondered what exactly it meant. William Turner would certainly not go back to being a mortal human, or the god would be unable to help him, for he couldn't interfere with human destinies. He wouldn't go back as his younger self either. He'd only be there, in two places, present and futur in a single timeline. He'd still have to live for eternity, alone.
Moreover, the Elizabeth Swann he'd meet back would certainly be smitten, as his had been, with the William Turner she'd seen and rescued during their trip from England. She wouldn't be his, not even for a short human life, but his other self's.
"I will be making him one of us, Calypso. He's already halfway there, anyway, and he will be feeling better as a god such as ourselves. Davy Jones being the captain of the Dutchman at the time, Will won't have to be, and the part of the curse that state he can't go on shore except one day every ten years will be nullified. As for his heart..."
And the man looked up at the frozen sky, where stars were silent in a stopped moment.
"His heart is what guarantee his life. Our children were heroes, and our children were brought to the sky at their death. A star can only be fitting for his heart."
Calypso too looked at the stars above their head, remembering how the chidren of gods and goddesses had always become, at some point, another star in the skies. Demigods, they were, and if William Turner was long estranged from his godly ancestor, through centuries and generations, he was already immortal. He belonged with them, even if he'd only be a lesser god. She wasn't worried about that. He was more likely to stay amongst mortals, at least for the first years, as he'd try to give his other self a better futur.
The goddess brought her hand to her chest, searching for her heartbeat.
Still, Will Turner would be freer than most demigods, able to walk upon the earth as any god, his heart securely left to assure his immortality amongst the stars.
Chronos unfroze time, and shared a look with Calypso. She nodded in aggreement.
The sun finally disappeared behind the sea, but the captain of the Dutchman was already gone.