One Day on Dry Land
Will gets used to being alone, the crew is a comfort, and the Flying Dutchman is a good ship and then of course there was Calypso always watching, but he is alone. Elizabeth and his children and his grandchildren have long since died, a good number of them at sea, and since been ferried on to the otherworld.
But Will is still here, unable to go ashore for more than one day a year, he's learned how to make his days count.
Today he's strolling through a park squidging his toes in the soft grass and enjoying the late summer sun, watching the kids run around a breakneck speed without a care in the world, helping a dog walker round up her wayward charges and just generally enjoying being part of the world.
He's examining a broken charm, a coin with a hole in the middle when he hears it.
"Jack Sparrow! Put your shoes on for the love of god!" bellows a pretty dark haired woman holding up a pair of slip on shoes.
'Captain,' Will thinks amusedly, pocketing the coin, 'Captain Jack Sparrow.'
"Captain—Captain Jack Sparrow," a little boy insists, exasperated, as though he's told his mother a half-hundred times and doesn't understand why she's being purposefully obtuse, but he does put his shoes on.
Will jumps a little bit in his skin, he's not ashamed to admit.
He can't be more than six years old and he's pulling a poorly made felt tricorn with a skull and crossbones emblazoned across the front over a tangled mess of black hair.
His eyes are the same, dark and with a twinkle of raw hell-raising mischief and they twinkle with innocent delight as he climbs the side of the jungle gym and plants himself in front of the plastic steering wheel.
Will's feet are carrying him forward and before he realizes what he's doing he's standing in the sand in front of the ship.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain?"
Jack stands on the tips of his toes and grins down at him, propping his elbows up on the wood of the play structure. He's missing the slightly lecherous leering edge, and the golden tooth but it's the same grin too.
"Well, I dunno, mate, can you sail under the command of the most fearsome pirate in the world?"
"You know what, Captain. I do believe I can."
They spend the afternoon together and Will meets Jack's mother and braids the little silver coin into his hair, and when he's too worn out to climb the 'rigging' or 'commandeer' other pieces of the play structure Will tells him a very highly edited version of his own story, and Jack asks him to come again in a year. He says that he'll wait here so that they can play again and makes a big deal, asking his mother to write it down for him.
And even though Will knows that it's a long shot he agrees. And as he walks the decks of the Dutchman watching the last light of sunset drop below the horizon and the green flash light the sky for a brief moment he knows he'll keep his promise even if he doesn't expect Jack to do the same.
AN: This is going to be a time jump fic, done in five parts, following the evolution of the relationship between Will and Reincarnated!Jack
Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean