An Adoring Heart: Chapter 7
By Polexia Aphrodite
Here's the real Chapter 7, at last. Reviews are most welcome and appreciated, as always. Also, there's a new scene and some different details in Chapter 2, which are slightly relevant to part of this chapter, so check it out (and let me know what you think) if you can.
--
Emma had first come across the chest that bore the heart of the current Davy Jones during a routine tidying of Elizabeth's quarters. With some difficulty, she had knelt by the side of her bed, rag in hand, hoping to clear some of the cobwebs from underneath the great, neglected piece of furniture. Instead, she had heard the heart's soft thumps and, though it practically required her to lower her unmanageable figure to lie flat on the floor, she had pulled the chest from its hiding place directly under the bed. Her husband had sometimes regaled her with the implausible details of his men's stories and myths, and she had more than an inkling of what she had come across, but simply shoved it back to its original position, somewhat bewildered, and continued her cleaning.
It wasn't until later, when Emma had learned of the perpetual nature of her beloved James' service, that she had actively sought the chest's key. She was not unsuccessful and her schemes had finally come to fruition as she stood before William Turner, Captain of the Flying Dutchman, with his pulsating heart in her small hand.
She could see that he was nervous, certainly, but he retained a particularly masculine confidence as he regarded her.
"You can't truly understand what you're doing," his voice was quiet, his tone meant to be dangerous.
"Can't I?" she was glad to realize that she couldn't hear in her words the wave of doubt that swept through her.
He stepped forward tentatively, her grip on the heart tightened and he stopped, raising a hand as though to clutch his chest, before forcing himself to lower it to his side.
"I have only just met my son, Mrs. Fraser," she could see the rapid workings of his mind behind the deep, brown eyes, "Do you mean to leave him fatherless?"
Emma swallowed. She had never truly considered killing Turner but knew then that were he to know that he was in little real danger she would be put to a tremendous disadvantage. But if she were to kill him, she thought, if she were to squeeze her fingers together only a little more, perhaps it would be for the greater benefit of all. She wondered what good an absent father could be to young William, or an absent husband to the fiery, passionate Elizabeth. And she and James would return to shore. She was sure he could find a position in the Royal Navy once more, they would have their child, and things would be as they always should have been.
James had once told her that he and his ships' guns had been responsible for the death of countless Spaniards and Frenchmen, as the occasion had called for it only a few years earlier and now, in that wild, unhinged moment, she wondered if she, too, were capable of killing.
--
James Norrington had never been inclined to trust William Turner, even after the younger man had become his captain. Knowing that the man who had once been so close an associate of the infamous Jack Sparrow was now alone with the woman who currently bore his yet-unborn child made something in his chest constrict uncomfortably. Elizabeth had remained in the wardroom to discuss with her father-in-law the various youthful behaviours of his toddling grandchild. James had quickly grown restless and found himself at the door to his cabin, adjacent to the door of the captain's cabin, hesitating to enter his own quarters. Knowing that Emma had, for some unknown reason, chosen to spend any part of her precious little time with him with Turner, instead of him, burned in the back of his mind.
He soon found himself with a hand resting lightly on the wrought iron handle to Turner's cabin, his ear pressed to the rough wood, straining to hear any sound that might emanate from the room, but heard only soft, indistinguishable murmurings.
Finally unable to wait any longer, James turned the handle, and entered, deciding that he could at least excuse his entrance on the pretext of asking some fabricated favour of his commanding officer.
They both turned as he stepped into the room. The moment he saw the heart clenched in Emma's hand, he thrust the door behind him shut with panic. He looked from one figure to the next, piecing together the scene that had played out before his interference.
"Emma," he began, but, not knowing how to finish his sentence, knowing that possessing the heart was unquestionably advantageous, but the heart in the hands of one who didn't understand the effect of destroying it was unspeakably dangerous.
Will vaguely realised that the three of them had not been so secluded together since the night he had discovered them in the governor's garden and, as he watched a steady, wordless glance pass between them, he had the odd sensation of intruding on some intensely private communication, though it was his own cabin they had infringed upon.
Gradually, a strangely disembodied, distinctly female laughter floated through the room. Emma's expression of confusion and sudden paranoia was matched by the resigned, knowing attitudes of the two men before her. From the shadows near the back of the cabin emerged the figure of a woman, dark ropes of hair framed kohl-smeared features, her bare shoulders gleamed bronze in the candlelight. She took leisurely, ambling steps towards Emma, a slight smile still playing on her lips.
"This is the woman who would take one of my men?" she looked at neither James nor Turner, but kept her appraising gaze fixed on the heavily pregnant Emma, glancing down momentarily at the heart in her hand, "Or perhaps you would give yourself to me too."
She circled Emma, leaning in so closely Emma swore she could feel her breath on the back of her neck.
"I've never had a woman before. And not just a woman," Calypso moved to face her rival again, extending a hand towards, but not touching, Emma's stomach, "but a man too." Something strange passed over the naiad's face as she contemplated claiming this new, as-yet-unborn masculine prisoner. Though desire inflamed her immortal body, it was quickly tempered by a wave of hot, prickling jealousy as she remembered the child's parentage and what its mother had only just attempted. With preternatural speed, a honey-coloured hand jerked forward, grasping Emma's pale wrist. Emma, who had been frozen with awe since the goddess' appearance, felt the heart slip from her fingers, as a new terror enveloped her. A stinging, which Emma had first felt when she had been grabbed by the wrist, quickly spread up her arm, the pain becoming so rapidly intense that she felt her knees buckle, dropping her increasingly aching form to the floor.
James watched the scene unfold before him, shock and horror bleeding into intense awareness as his mind worked quickly. "Do you fear death?" he heard Calypso ask imperiously and, though the watery, stricken look on his Emma's face sent the breath rushing from his lungs and made his chest tighten uncontrollably, he forced himself to speak.
"Please," his voice sounded ragged and unnatural, "Spare her, I beg you."
Her dark gaze was on him instantly.
"I am yours," he breathed, "No-one else's."
"Forever," her unnaturally blackened lips curved into a feral smile.
"Yes."
In less than fifteen minutes, Emma found the formidable Calypso again retreated into the ship's shadows and herself veritably tossed above decks to be rushed into a boat, and lowered to the swelling sea below.
Moments before her expulsion, James had pulled her to him, unaware and uninterested in the fact that the attention of every member of the ship's devious crew was fixed upon the unlucky pair.
"I--," she began, wanting to apologise, to erase what she had done. He silenced her with a firm, warm hand on her belly.
"I know why you did it," he murmured by her ear, his thumb tracing a quick circle against the fabric of her dress, his other hand entwining itself in the loosened, brunette curls at the base of her neck, committing every part of her to memory once again, "Keep him safe."
She met his eyes desperately, her hand clutching his, wanting to tell him everything she felt for him but knowing she didn't need to.
After a final, devastatingly brief kiss, she was lowered out of sight.
--
In the following months, James continued to fulfill his duty to the Dutchman, its crew, and its captain, but knowing that six months' time would no longer bring him his Emma only increased his bitterness.
In half a year, Elizabeth and her growing son were once again aboard the ethereal ship and James had once again hidden himself below decks. It was hours after her arrival, when the hot afternoon sun had forced her below decks, that Elizabeth entered his cabin slowly, closing the door quietly behind her. James sat on the edge of his cot, his face buried in his hands. She moved to lean against the wall to his left.
"Is she alright?" his voice was muffled by his hands and Elizabeth had to strain to understand him. Elizabeth had forgiven Emma, understanding the state she was in and the absence of real malice in her actions, taken her in, and overseen the birth of James' child.
"Yes, she's well."
He looked up, his green eyes hardened and distant. Elizabeth felt anxiousness build within her.
"She gave the midwife a bit of a scare," she continued conversationally, "But she's done well since."
James remained unmoved. In truth, the idea that the birth had been difficult made his stomach turn. A lump had grown so tightly in his throat, he felt unable to speak, though a million questions rose in his mind.
"His name is Thomas," she wrung her hands, his silence perturbing her ever further as she tried to cheer him with what news she had, "He's well too, healthy enough, and handsome as his father."
James' stomach churned. He didn't want to know about his son, the child he would never meet. He could have been content to hear that the woman he had loved for over a decade was in good health without any hints to the tiny infant he had saddled her with, a product of their union whose existence was a source of torment and misery along with pride and happiness.
"He's got green eyes – your eyes, Emma says – and straight black eyebrows that even I know belong to you."
He looked up at her. She was smiling encouragingly, her eyes searching his for some recognizable emotion.
He turned back to his lap.
"What else?"
Her smile broadened as she launched into a (somewhat censored, he suspected) retelling of Thomas Norrington's life from the moment of his birth. He would hear what she had to say about his son. He would listen to her fawn and embellish, as women were wont to do in regards to children. Against his better judgment, he would secretly treasure every word of her narrative, though he knew it would later bring him sleepless nights filled with tortured thoughts of the family he would never hold as his own.
--
That morning in Port Royal had dawned clear and hot, as so many other Jamaican mornings had. Emma had been nursing her son in Elizabeth Turner's parlour when she suddenly felt struck by the strange sensation that she was no longer alone in the quiet house. Though she knew that young William and his mother were aboard the Dutchman, happily visiting with the man they so greatly missed. The thought made Emma's heart sink.
Situating the infant Thomas in a nearby cradle, Emma rose from the chaise she had been seated on and turned, only to be met by the shocking, disarming appearance of a man she had seen only once before, on the day he had been supposed to die. His eyes, like Calypso's, were rimmed in kohl and the rest of him was undeniably filthy. His stance seemed unsteady and the ornaments which decorated nearly every inch of his costume tinkled lightly as he swayed. He eyed her with consternation, his chin lifted and eyes squinting.
"You're not Elizabeth"
She should have known Elizabeth would have persisted in keeping company with a character as notorious as Jack Sparrow and sighed.
"No. She's not here."
He grunted in reply, "You must be Mrs. Fraser. I've heard about you." He took a slow step towards her.
Emma felt her heart quicken its pace and her brow furrow as she attempted to quickly evaluate the threat Sparrow posed to her and her tiny child.
"I heard," he began, sobering, looking her squarely in the eye with a sudden and alarming clarity, "that you were quite enamoured of a certain Admiral Norrington, lately taken residence aboard the Flying Dutchman. I suppose that's his, there, innit?" He jerked his head towards the cooing infant, but Emma remained unmoved, "I feel for you, really, separated forever from the man you love…father of your one and only child."
He looked down his nose at her again, anticipating a response. Emma knew what he was doing, knew that she was being manipulated, but didn't stop him.
"I heard something else too," he continued unabated, "that you threatened the captain of the Dutchman with his own, beating heart."
She blinked.
He smiled, "Thought so. Any chance of showing old Jack where it is now?"
The thought of helping a pirate, especially this pirate, who had driven James to the ends of the earth and nearly ruined him, made her sneer with contempt. But the fact was that she still knew where the heart was hidden, even though Elizabeth had moved it. She had never intended to find it again, but her routine tidying had yet again proven her undoing. And then, faced with Sparrow, she wondered if he could accomplish what she could not.
"Why should I?"
"If you give me that heart, I can guarantee your James will be back by nightfall"
"How?"
"I think you'll find, Mrs. Fraser, that I can be very persuasive…as the situation calls for it."
She left the room silently, trusting Thomas' safety with the scandalous pirate as long as he yet had something to gain by her return. In a few moments, she stood before him again, the chest heavy in her hands.
"Elizabeth's told me about you," she spoke quietly, daring him to contradict her as her hands ran across the chest's engravings, "You're using me, aren't you?"
Sparrow smiled, baring a mouth filled with blackened and gold-enameled teeth, "Too right, love. But don't I offer you the world in return?"
"How do I know you'll keep up your end of our bargain?"
He swaggered up to her, taking her hand between his, he leered, swaying nearer to her, his foul breath filling her nostrils, "You'll just have to trust me."
"What will you do when you find them?" her eyes lowered to the chest, her voice faltered, "You won't kill him?"
"'Course not," he leaned backwards unsteadily, his eyes narrowing, "Only want to have a chat with some old friends. And bring back your precious James. What have you to say to that?"
She looked up at him, searching his face for a long moment before thrusting the chest into his arms.
"You'll find the Dutchman three miles east of Port Royal"
Jack Sparrow backed away slowly, bowing and touching the brim of his hat in a mockery of decency, "You have my word, ma'am."
And then he was gone.
--
Notes: Emma and James' son was always called "Horatio" in my mind, though more after Horatio Hornblower than Nelson. But since Emma's namesake is Emma, Lady Hamilton (though her character isn't explicitly modeled after her), I thought it might be kind of odd and obvious to name him Horatio. And having two James' didn't work for me either, so Thomas it is.
As for the characterization of Calypso, I'm sort of drawing from my interpretation of Homer's depiction of her mixed with the Pirates of the Caribbean brand of mythology. As I figure it, like so many other characters, her motives are not entirely pure and may even be pretty sinister. In some ways, she could be an embodiment of a female sexual predator. In the Odyssey, she more or less 'collects' Odysseus and certainly prevents him from reuniting with Penelope, this theme could continue in the Pirates universe in that she collects men aboard the Dutchman and prevents them from being with their loved ones for the majority of their time, though they're probably not being kept as sex slaves. She might make an exception for Elizabeth, because she knows her, but she doesn't know Emma and Emma's plotting makes her a particular target for jealousy and rage.
Also, I've started a livejournal as linked through my homepage on my profile here, which will gradually become home to this story as well as some additional scenes too inappropriate for so if you're interested, please check it out and leave comments! I'd love to hear what you all think of the additional scenes as they filter in, providing you're a mature adult or reasonable facsimile.
