Title: "A Better Eternity"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG
Summary: He finally has his son.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: 244. That's the number of stories that were sitting on my hard drive collecting dust because I lack the energy and time to take care of them as I once did. My betaing pattern has always been to write, then type up if written on paper, the story, read it aloud to my beloved Jack and our children, editing as I go, and then finally format and post. Sadly, this part is simply taking too much of my time and energy, and my beloved Jack and I have too little time together in person these days to be able to keep up with my stories. So what to do? Give up writing? I actually considered it for a while, tried to make excuses to myself other than the large number of stories collecting cyber dust on my computer, as to why I lacked the energy and Muse to write new tales. And then, with the turn of the new year, I decided to stop running and face the problem. The problem is, quite frankly, that once one gets so bogged down in formatting and editing that writing is no longer a pleasure but the actual posting of those writings becomes a hassle and - egad! - work, it's time to cut something out, and that will never be the writing process. So, in short, yes, there will be mistakes in this tale. Yes, it's missing about half of the header information I usually include. But I wrote it for pleasure and am posting it in hopes of sharing that pleasure with others. Do with it as you will.
In Hell, minutes become years; years become centuries. Men lose all track of time and can only vaguely remember what they most treasured in life. There's only one memory that Bootstrap has managed to cling to for most of his eternity thus far. He has a son, and he aches for that son's forgiveness.
From time to time, as his son grew in the land of the living, Bill's sanity would almost return to him, and he'd wonder about his child, how he was growing up, if Jack had found him, who was caring for him, and the kind of man he would become or perhaps had already became, but now, he knows what kind of man his son is. Bootstrap's mind is a muddled mess. He barely remembers how Will found him, but he's here with him now.
He's with him every day, if you can call what they have days, captaining the Flying Dutchman, and steering them toward a better eternity than Bill thought he'd ever get. He knows they're still damned, but the future's never looked brighter to the old Pirate with a wonderful, grown son who's forgiven him and loves him enough to share his Hell.
The End