Falls the Sword

Chapter 2: In Between

Everything was black. He didn't move, wasn't sure he could have if he'd wanted to, but he didn't try. At least there was no more pain; he thanked God for that. But there was nothing else either, and the oblivion in itself was frightening.

He felt like he was floating, in a way, but he couldn't tell where he was, or, for that matter, how long he'd been there. Whether it had been years or only seconds, all he could see in his mind's eye was Elizabeth, and he knew that he had to get back, back to where he'd come from before he'd ended up here – but then he reminded himself that he couldn't go back, because he had died in that world, and you can't come back from that… right?

Both Jack and Barbossa had managed it, but they'd both had help – the kind of help that Will didn't think he was likely to get. There was no obeah priestess to call him back, no Locker to rescue him from. And besides, what did his life matter? He wasn't one of the Pirate Lords. His life didn't matter to anyone, except Elizabeth. Just her. No one else. Before today, he might have thought that it would matter to his father, but now he couldn't even be sure of that. Elizabeth was all he had left, and now he would never see her again.

There were lights in the darkness. He wasn't sure how long they'd been there; all he knew was that he was suddenly aware of them. He didn't know exactly what they were either, but he could tell that they came from two sources, one above him and one below.

The one above him was pure white, the brightest he had ever seen, so much so that he found he couldn't even look at it.

The second light, the one far below him, was a ruddy reddish-orange, flickering like a burning flame, scorching and deadly.

But even as he looked down at it, he became aware that is was moving farther and farther away, and the white light from above was growing stronger. It was warm and beautiful, calling to mind memories of happier times and people he'd loved, even some memories that he had long since forgotten: his very early childhood in Glasgow, Scotland, before his father had left to go pirating; he and his mother moving to England after she finally accepted that Bill Turner was never coming back. From there he flashed briefly through his mother's death and that fateful voyage to the Caribbean, before his mind finally settled on his adolescence in Port Royal: he worked so hard in the blacksmith shop that Mr. Brown didn't mind if he slipped out for a few hours, or even a whole day on occasion, and he would take the opportunity to spend time with Elizabeth. Sometimes she would already be waiting in their favorite spot in the woods, hoping that he would be able to come; other times he would sneak through the gardens behind the Governor's Mansion and throw rocks at her window until she appeared, and then it was a simple matter of remaining out of sight until she convinced her father to let her go out "for a walk." Then they could spend as long as they liked playing pirates on the beach, with sticks and twigs as their swords and knives. He loved watching her laugh at the theatrical performances he gave when she pretended to kill him after a long battle on the high seas…

But then they grew up, and she wasn't allowed to go out "walking" anymore, because one too many people had seen the governor's daughter spending time with the blacksmith's apprentice – who, as the town gossips liked to remind each other, had been orphaned before his arrival in Jamaica, and therefore had no connections at all and no business with a young woman of high society – and suddenly Elizabeth had all but vanished from his life. He was left to his blacksmithing, and she was meticulously taught how to be a lady.

Again, scenes and images flashed by rapidly, until suddenly he found himself standing boldly in front of Governor Swann and James Norrington and Elizabeth – beautiful, perfect Elizabeth – and he watched himself speak the words that would change his life forever:

"I should have told you every day from the moment I met you… I love you."

He saw their first kiss, that perfect moment on the battlements of Fort Charles, when the wild joy that filled his heart was reflected in her shining eyes…

After that it was a whirlwind of memories of their one amazing year together, planning the wedding and dreaming of a future spent with each other – until the day Cutler Beckett arrived and shattered those hopes like glass, glass that would cut into his heart and even into his very soul, leaving him torn between the father he wouldn't abandon and the woman he loved more than life itself.

"Will? Come on, please. William…"

The words were faint and quiet, as though heard over a great distance, but they were enough to snap Will out of his reverie.

"You have to come back to me, kid. Please…"

There was another light now, not as bright as the one above him, but moving steadily toward him – or maybe he was moving toward it? – and then it engulfed him and hazy, grey shapes began to spin dizzily before his eyes…

When I started writing this chapter, I didn't actually intend to put in all the memories and reminiscing and stuff... it just sort of happened, and I liked it, so I left it. That seems to happen to me a lot...