Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates of the Caribbean, its story and characters, is owned by Walt Disney Pictures.
Chapter Twenty-One
"You and Will?" Elizabeth murmured into her mug. "I never would have imagined."
Jack nodded thoughtfully, knowing good and well that Elizabeth wasn't actually addressing him, as he took a swig of his rum. Will had just dropped quite a lot on Elizabeth without giving much consideration as to how the young woman felt, and Jack felt a bit sorry for her. He had been at the brunt of Will's anger before and even if it seemed to him that the blacksmith was going a bit easier on Elizabeth than he had on Jack, the pirate felt almost obligated to help the young woman straighten things out in her head. At least this one time anyway.
"Ta be fair lass," Jack added, "we were never actually together. We jus' had few moments is all."
"You two have something that Will and I were supposed to have," Elizabeth said sadly. "You have a family. Nathan... could have been mine."
Jack frowned at the young woman's comment. He had caught the hitch in her voice at the word "could" and automatically knew that what she really wanted to say was "should." He couldn't be mad at her though. The truth of the matter was that that was how things should have been. Elizabeth should have married Will, she should be the one birthing their children, and Jack should have been the one who was jealous of them. It was really all Jack's fault (indirectly) that things hadn't worked out that way. Will had told him flat out that he couldn't marry Elizabeth because he had slept with Jack. Take away that one little event and everything might have worked out fine.
"Doubtful that he'd turn out the same," Jack mused conversationally. "Two o' ye would have raised him different so he wouldn' o' had the same personality."
"We could have had beautiful children," Elizabeth said, her words were soft and sad as her brown eyes gave a far away look. "I'd birth as many as he wanted and I would have loved them all! Little boys, little girls, whatever he wanted I would have given him! I'd have been a good mother, the best mother there could be."
She was drunk. Jack knew it, but it didn't surprise him. The woman had three empty mugs in front of her and she was just about to polish off a fourth. It had been his intention all along to get her drunk, it was what Jack had thought would be the most helpful solution to her problem. He figured if he could get her to drown her sorrows and pour out her anguish to him then she'd feel a bit better about the situation in the morning. It was what had always worked for him.
Actually, now that he thought about it... No. It was best not to think about it. He was already too far into his plan to bother to turn back now.
"Never knew ye were the maternal type 'Lizabeth," Jack said as he signalled for a serving wench to come over and refill their drinks. A skinny black haired woman came over to gather their empty mugs and replace them with freshly filled ones. The woman turned and stared at Elizabeth questioningly before silently moving on to another table. Clearly they didn't get many woman in this pub, but Jack shrugged it off. He was still sober enough to focus on what he was doing, so he knew it would be quite awhile before they left. The wench might have to get used to Elizabeth's presence after tonight. "Tell me lass, d'ye still want children?"
Elizabeth sniffed as she casually tossed her hair over her shoulder. The move would have been graceful had she been sober, but in her current state it seemed awkward and slightly worrisome, as if she were about to tip over, but caught herself just on time. "I don't really know anymore," she told him honestly. "When it was with Will... Yes. I knew we'd be happy an' I knew I could do it, because that was what I wanted. I want to have his babies! Because they would have been him. Everywhere I went I would have a little bit of Will all around me, even a little of Will inside of me.
"But now the idea is not so appealin'," she said, before stopping to take another pull at her rum, completely finishing her fourth mug. She placed it down with what had been intended to be a thump, but turned into a wobble as the mug tipped over onto it's side. "Will isn't an option anymore. Having his babies isn't an option anymore. It's frightening to think about. Even when he was gone I had hope... I hoped that one day we'd see each other again. I would go out to sea, become a pirate an' I'd find Will waiting for me, happy and still in love... now I'm miserable an' alone."
Jack nodded again, adding in a thoughtful "hm" just for good measure. At this point he was only really half listening as he silently argued with himself whether or not to call it a night. One glance out towards the sole window in the pub told Jack that it was already pitch black outside. He had originally intended to let Elizabeth get at least six mugs of rum in her, but her body was small and child like, six mugs might be pushing things for her. What's more he wanted to get up early tomorrow so that he could spend time with Nathan and try to win Will over. If Elizabeth got too drunk she'll be sick in the morning and in need of Jack's care.
On second thought, maybe I should cut meself off fer the night as well.b
"I wish he had told me," he heard Elizabeth saying. "I wish he could have at least explained why he wouldn't marry me, but he didn't say a word! How hard would it have been for him to tell me? 'Sorry Elizabeth, I can't marry you because I'm having Jack's baby.' See, it wasn't that hard!"
"He didn' know he was pregnant when he left ye," Jack pointed out gently as he reached over to grab one of the still full mugs across from Elizabeth.
"He still should have told me," Elizabeth half sobbed as tears suddenly appeared in the corners of her foggy eyes. "I didn' know why he left an' I felt horrible! It would have been decent of him to just tell me instead of making me suffer!"
Jack said nothing. He merely eyed the other mug of rum within grabbing distance from the young woman. He'd let her have one more and then it'd be off to bed.
"What was he like Jack?" Elizabeth sniffed as she brushed her hair out of her face, once again giving off the impression of tipping over.
"What?" Jack asked, caught off guard by the question.
"You slept with him obviously. What was it like?"
If Jack had been the type of man who blushed at indecent comments, his face would have been bright red. Luckily for him, he wasn't that type of man, so he just raised a questioning eyebrow at the young woman across from him. "It ain't the same lass," Jack explained gently. "When two mates have sex it ain't the same as a lad an' a lass."
"You can still give me a general idea," Elizabeth said as she leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand. "Was he good? Did he move around a lot or was he stiff?"
The pirate smirked. If Will were here he would kill him for this, but he figured that Elizabeth wouldn't remember anything he said and even if she did she'd be smart enough to keep it to herself. "We spent two nights together," Jack recounted. "The night we conceived Nathan an' the night we conceived the baby Will's carryin' now, that was 'bout a month ago. When we conceived Nathan we made love three times. It was his first time, an' he didn' want ta do it so he was very shy an' very stiff. When we made love a month ago he was angry with me so he was very... aggressive. He moans a lot an' has a tendency ta bite... now at least, but yes darlin' he was very good."
For a while, Elizabeth just nodded, taking in all the information as if Jack had been telling her how his day had gone, but once he had stopped talking her eyes began to water and her bottom lip started to tremble. Before he knew it the slim young woman was sobbing silently to herself and Jack felt like a complete fool. He should have never told her that! It was stupid to think that she would be able to handle that sort of information. After all, he wouldn't want to hear about how good Will was in the sack from Elizabeth.
With a sigh, Jack stood up from his seat across from Elizabeth and walked to the other side of the table. "Alright lass," Jack said as helped the young woman get to her feet. "That's enough rum fer ye. Let's get ye ta bed."
Elizabeth reluctantly did as she was told, but as they walked towards the door she rested most of her weight against his own thin frame and continued to sob. "It could have been me!" she howled. "It could've! It should've!"