"James Thomas! In here now!" Cutler called. Twelve year old James cringed slightly from his father's angry voice using his middle name. He knew what he did was only an accident, but he could never explain that to his father, even though he can't remember the last time he lied to his parents. He slowly walked up the stairs like a puppy that had been beaten one too many times. His father wasn't the one to get angry a lot, not around him at least. James knew that his anger now was caused by the stress of leaving for an indefinite amount of time to arrest and execute two people in a place called Port Royal in the Caribbean again. They were two people that Cutler described as "menaces to society, terrorists and worst of all: pirates"

"Y-you called me?" James asked as he peaked his head through the door of his father's study. He saw his father throwing clothes into a trunk in anger.

"I did. What did you do with my coat?" he almost demanded, yet his voice wasn't raised. James sighed silently in relief.

"Isn't it in the back of your closet where it always is?"

"If it was, I wouldn't be asking where it was. You"

"Always ask the most obvious questions, I know," James finished. He voiced faded off. His father was changing. His mother told him that he started changing when his job became more demanding after he was born. He was even tenser now. He had lost two fugitives. A man and woman, fiancés. He had a warrant for another's arrest, but through careful bargaining he brought him into the company. "Which coat are you looking for?"

"My maroon one." James walked over to the hat rack by the door and unhooked the maroon coat from a peg. He father snatched it from his hand, without any thanks and he threw it on his own back. James quietly backed out of the room.

As he ran his fingers over the cherry wood banister of the stairs, he heard his mother singing as she walked across the foyer, he dress flowing behind her. She never fancied elegant gowns with corsets and lots of lace. Her dresses were inexpensive, but if she were hosting a gathering of some sort, or just attending on, she would put on a dress that only the wealthy could afford. Lately she has been claiming that she can't fit into many of her dresses. She said that she could only fit into the dresses she insisted on keeping from twelve years ago. She jumped slightly when Cutler exclaimed. "What is THIS?!" James cringed. "James!" He quietly walked backwards to his father's study, this time like the puppy that was just shot.

"Yes, father?" Cutler held up his maroon coat. On the right sleeve's cuff, there was a blotch of ink. James's eyebrows came together and up. He sobbed a little.

"Did you do this?" he asked semi calmly

"Now who's the one asking obvious questions?!" James shouted. He regretted it. He knew not to raise his voice to his father. Cutler's glare wouldn't leave his son's face.

"What did you just say?"

"N-nothing…" Cutler brought his hand back and James whimpered and crouched down. Before Cutler's hand could even reach his son, Susan came into the room.

"Cutler!" she exclaimed. "What in God's name do you think you're doing?!" Cutler dropped his hand and his attitude suddenly changed.

"I…I don't know." James looked at his father. His eyes had changed. They were wide and sympathetic, but unlike other times, James saw that he actually matched his expression on the inside.

"James, your father and I need to discuss some things. Could you please leave?" Susan asked politely. James nodded and left quietly and he walked to his room. Cutler brought over two chairs from the other side of the room, but Susan refused to sit. "What was that?!" Cutler mouthed words but nothing came out.

"I don't know what came over me…"

"It's the same excuse every time I catch you, isn't it?" Susan cocked her head slightly. "I don't know why you are changing this drastically. Ever since James has grown enough for him to understand what is going on around him, you have acted as if he was the child you never wanted. Is that true?" Cutler looked toward the window where the sun was being blocked out by gray clouds.

"Of course not." He grabbed his trunk and opened the door.

"We're not done here, Cutler," Susan said calmly as he started down the hall.

"I need to get this on the ship before the storm comes."

"No you don't. You need to fix your relationship first." But Cutler didn't stop. "Get back here!" Susan managed to get in front of him. "Are you daft? Don't you notice anything? Can't you see repeating history?" Cutler stopped to think. "Cutler…you came back 4 months ago. I can't believe you don't see it now." He looked her in the eyes in slight surprise.

"You're not…"

"I am." She sighed. "If you treat James like this…I don't know if I can trust you with another. If you don't shape up-"

"I…I need to leave." He opened the front door and dragged his trunk outside. He didn't bother with the carriage. He lived right by the port.

"I hope you find what you're looking for!" Susan called out with sudden urgency in her voice. "I hope you find what you're looking for…because I'm not. You stopped caring for anyone but yourself when your Majesty dubbed you Lord Cutler Beckett, and I Lady. You can't buy happiness and security." She stomped her foot and scoffed. "You and I always treat these days like the last ones we'll ever see each other. What a fine way we have spent the one that will come true!" Cutler stopped in his tracks.

"What are you saying?" he asked.

"I won't be here if you do come back! Maybe it's best for both of us…soon to be four of us, that you DON'T come back!" Cutler felt like he had just been punched in the gut. Those words, they hurt more than any insult or injury he had ever received as a child.

"Susan…please." He started to tremble.

"You've had your chances! You've had 6 years to change! You never took any of those chances! I liked you better when you were eighteen." Susan began to walk up to him. "It seems that I've lost my husband, Cutler Beckett. If you see him, tell him that I miss him and wish that he'd come home." Cutler, without looking at her, knew that she was crying. Her voice wavered and she sniffled a lot. He sighed.

"My lily…my love. My lily, my love. My lily AND my love. God I have forsaken you and picked the petals off the most precious flower in your Garden of Eden. Please bless her and protect her that she may not wilt, but grow again, and that my fingers shall never touch the fragile petals of that beauty for harm. My life is within her and her son, our son. I shall see them again."

"Never say…we die."

Susan was choking on her tears. Cutler turned around. She smiled. "That's the man I knew at eighteen." She kissed him passionately and as he pulled away, she knew it was a promise that said "I will come back."

She walked down to the shore with him, people pointing at them. They could see Susan's condition clearly. She even overheard a comment. "Poor dear. She's going to be an Ace of Spades soon, and with two children." She walked halfway down the docks to the Endeavour. Before Cutler even set foot on the boarding ramp, he stopped. "Come with us."

"What?"

"You and James…come with us."

"Again…are you daft?! I'm 4 months pregnant…It takes 3 months alone to get to Port Royal, and then you may spend months traveling elsewhere. Either way, I'll be on a ship to give birth with no one but MEN. Not exactly something pleasant."

"But we will all die at the same time if we do…none of us will be alone."

"I couldn't go through with it. Just like every other time, it's a risk we need to take." Susan turned around and saw James running up toward them.

"Please forgive me!" he called. Cutler didn't answer, but he gave a smile. James knew that he already had. As the ship cast off the dock and headed for Port Royal, James knew his father was coming back.