Adoption

Chapter 1: Curiosity Killed The Swann

Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean.

Note: This is set after AWE.

Elizabeth Swann always was too nosy for her own good.

Life in Port Royal can be very boring. Especially when you are in disgrace for franchising with pirates. She felt like a small child, grounded from playing out with her friends for being caught kissing boys behind the dustbins.

There wasn't much to do; especially now her father had passed away. She was avoiding cleaning out his office, for she was scared of what she might find in there. The maids were good playmates when she was little, but their gossip disinterested her now she had experienced the unmatchable excitement of pirate adventures.

Every nook and cranny of her house she had explored years ago. Except, that was, her fathers' office.

I can't, she would think, every time she found her hand reaching out towards the polished brass door handle. Sometimes it took hours to persuade herself not to go in, and sometimes the maids would wonder what she was doing.

She would tell herself she needed to clean out sometime; she wasn't going to live forever and then who would do it? Then she wondered why she was scared, there was nothing in there that could possibly be that bad, was there?

Eventually she realized there was going to be no talking herself out of it, and besides what harm could it do?

So she cautiously opened the door and slipped inside.

"Right," said to herself, casting her eyes around the dusty room. "This can go," she tipped an old lantern off a wooden trestle table into a waiting box on the floor. "And this, and…" She soon lost herself in her cleaning. A few things she wanted to keep, such as old family paintings and heirlooms. Some letters seemed significant, so she kept those too.

"Another from Commodore Norrington, and another…" she tailed off as she leafed through the letters she had found in the top drawer of her fathers' desk. "Mothers' death certificate…" it saddened her to see this and tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of her coat. Then she smiled as she saw something she knew she was bound to come across sooner or later. An envelope with her name and birthday on it. "My birth certificate." She smiled and opened the envelope. It was however, not her birth certificate, but an – "Adoption certificate?" she gasped as her eyes scanned the page. "No, never… father always said I had my mothers' eyes…" she said, still disbelieving. "My father." She said viciously, slamming the letter down on the desk and searching through the others for some evidence that would back up this.

Then she found it. And she could not deny it.

She was not Elizabeth Swann.

14th of December 1821

Dear Governor Swann,

I am very sorry to tell you your wife, Alice Clara Swann, has been diagnosed with infertility. Of course you know this means she will never be able to have children. I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.

Yours sympathetically,

Dr. Thomas R. Adams.

"Who am I?" she asked herself, staring at the letter in shock. This was never a question she intended to ask herself; yesterday she would have said she was Elizabeth Swann, thank you very much. But now… now that meant nothing.

Elizabeth knew what she must do. Putting the letter on the desk with a determined look on her face, she raced out of the house, barking at the maids not to disturb anything in her fathers' room. They knew, of course, they had not been in that room since before he died.

Elizabeth raced down the streets of Port Royal, the public gasping and bouncing out of the way in horror at the sight of her swords. She paid no mind to them; however, she was out to see one person and one person only.

"Adams!" she yelled as she banged on the door of the old doctors' house. "Doctor Adams! Open this door now!"

"Doctor Adams?" came the frail old voice of the man inside. "No one's called me doctor in ages! I've been retired fifteen years!"

"Of course," she said, ceasing her assault on the door.

He opened the door slowly. A small, the bespectacled man stood there. "Ah! Is it the young Miss Swann who has come to visit me today? What a pleasure it is!"

"I would love to spend some time with you, Mr Adams, but I need to know…"

"Need to know what, my dear?"

"Is it true?"

"Is what true? I don't think I've ever lied to you, my dear."

"About my mother."

His face paled and his smile disappeared. "I think you'd better come in, dear…" He held the door open wide and gestured for her to enter. She stepped in graciously.

It was an old house; stone and cold like many of the houses in Port Royal. Yet this one had a sense of luxury about it, a rustic grandeur, if you will. She had no time to take in any more about her surroundings, as the old man had led her into a chair and was now offering her ginger biscuits.

A tag-peg rug sat in the middle of the living room floor, brightening up the cobblestone floor with its bright reds and greens. A large wood fireplace was up against one wall, giving warm life and a golden glow to everything around it.

"There is a lot I could tell you about Alice, Elizabeth…" the old man began, giving up on trying to feed her ginger biscuits and eating them himself. "Much of it your father didn't want you to know."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes when he was looking away to pour himself some tea. A lot of help he was turning out to be.

"I'm guessing you found the letter when clearing out his room," he continued. "I was expecting to hear from you a lot earlier. What took you so long to clear out?" Then he looked at her with a knowing glint in his old chocolate eye. "Wanting to hang on, eh?" he winked. "Now, as I was saying…now what was I saying?"

"A lot of things you could tell me about Alice?" she pressed.

"Ah, yes! Alice! Well, as I'm sure you know she was diagnosed with infertility at a rather early age."

"Before I was born," said Elizabeth, nodding.

"…Yes. And that is where the complications start."

"So you're telling me what I thought when I first saw that adoption certificate?"

"Yes. Governor Swann and Alice Swann are not your real parents."

Considering this is what Elizabeth first thought when she saw the two documents, hearing from someone else had really make the shock hit home. She didn't want to believe it, all of a sudden. "But – but – my mother! She died in childbirth!"

The old physician shook his head, his white forelocks falling in his eyes. "Alice Swann died of pneumonia. She spent too long out walking on the headland one night with Governor Swann."

"I can't believe this!" she stormed, getting up off her wicker chair and pacing the cobbled floor.

The retired doctor looked slightly worried at her attitude. "Miss Swann I think you should leave," he said cautiously, showing her still the amount of respect he thought she deserved. Elizabeth nodded and silently left the house.

She didn't quite know what to do after that. She knew what she had to do, in time, but she didn't know how to start. She knew she must find her real parents, at the very least, her father. But she had no idea how.

For this she seemed to take a slightly Jack Sparrow-esque view on this: Go home and sleep on it. So she did just that. The maids gave her puzzled looks at her state of distress. She changed into bedclothes and went to bed.

She didn't sleep until well after midnight and yet awoke at the crack of dawn. Shouts, gunfire and a raucous half-drunken laughter could be heard out on the streets. She went to her window and saw from her high viewpoint some sort of calamity going on at the docks, involving swinging pillars and all sorts.

Look's like Jack's in the right place at the right time, she thought, as she reached for her coat and slowly made her way out of the house.


Well, what do you think? This is an idea that has been bothering me for a while and I wanted to write it. I have a distinct plotline n my head and know exactly what is going to happen, which is a first with my fanfiction. Please review and let me know how I am doing, and Scrasun if you read this, please don't make any pointless stupid reviews like you did on Peace & Quiet, it messed up my reviews page!

Thanks,

HoopBanana.