Elizabeth was still in shock as Mina locked the door and threw the bar across it, disappearing up the ladder, her form hazy through the frosted glass. "What did you just say?" she demanded, turning to Jack.
"Forget that for a moment," said Will, partially to delay having to process what had just been revealed, partly because this was as private a moment as he and Elizabeth were going to get. "Look at me."
"But –"
"But nothing." Will caught her wrist, pulling her closer and ignoring the fact that, though he looked completely relaxed, Jack was straining his ears. "Elizabeth, what's wrong with you?"
"Wrong?" She bristled, hoping he would not have noticed – at least, not enough to say anything. "Nothing's wrong. We're captured by pirates, your father's come back from the dead – what could be wrong?"
He shook her slightly. "Why are you acting this way?"
"What way?"
"Elizabeth!"
"Perhaps because she feels threatened, mate," Jack drawled, head pillowed on his hands as he lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.
Will blinked. "Threatened?"
Elizabeth was giving him a look that was enough to scorch his hair, but Jack continued anyway. "You're a pirate, mate, and pirates always drift toward their own. Unless, of course, they don't want the world to know they're pirates, in which case they don't."
"What?"
"Hold your tongue," Elizabeth snapped.
"I believe she was talking to you," Jack said to Will. "Anyway, since you've decided you're one who doesn't want the world to know, you'd naturally want someone primped and perfect, not Will – Mina – a pirating lass with as good a sword arm as your own and a tongue that can be three times worse." From the look on his face it was obvious that Jack really did not mind either her arm or her tongue, even though both were usually displayed against him. "So then your bonny lass has decided to show you that you indeed wed the right one."
Will blinked. "Where's the logic in that?"
"Whoever told you women we logical, mate?" Jack shrugged. "Besides, Elizabeth – may I call you Elizabeth?"
"Mrs. Turner," she corrected, eyes flashing.
"Mrs. Turner, then. Besides, that husband of yours is a bit too closely related to Will – Mina – the pirate lass – to even think of leaving you." As ever, there was a hint of mockery to the way he gestured lazily with one hand.
Will took a deep breath, preparing to demand of Elizabeth how she could even think he would look at another woman, but she spoke first. "Why do you keep calling her Will?"
"'s what I always called her. I've been calling her Will years longer than I've known your bonny lad." Jack smiled, closing his eyes and seeming to disappear into a place only he knew.
Will adjusted his hand so he could interlace their fingers. "Elizabeth. Is that true?"
She could hardly bring herself to look at him. "I've seen the looks you were giving her. And I thought – I thought, you married a governor's daughter, so that's what I should be. I mean," she hastened, "I can't tell you the number of times I've thought about asking you to teach me about sword fighting, but when it's with her – she just rubs me the wrong way. I can't bring myself to listen to her, not when she's always looking at us like she knows something we don't."
"Well, she does," he pointed out. "So you might want to get used to that."
Elizabeth sighed, tucking herself under his chin. "I feel like I'm losing you. Maybe not to her, but to . . . to something."
Something twisted in the region of Will's stomach. "You're not losing me," he promised, feeling somewhat empty. Piracy called to him, indeed, and he had been intrigued by Mina from the start, but not in the way Elizabeth had feared. It was more . . . well, he could not exactly say what it was more of, but it was not that.
After a moment of silence, Elizabeth asked, "Where is she?"
"With Jack," Jack said, voice more annoyed than neutral.
She frowned, pulling back. "Who?"
"Oh, you didn't see him earlier? He was probably asleep." The pirate shrugged. "He lives in her cabin."
"Oh?" Will was looking confused, glad to have something other than his father upon which to concentrate.
"Yes. She keeps him in a cage."
* * * * *
Jack had originally belonged to Bootstrap Bill but, when Bootstrap was sent to the bottom of Davy Jones' Locker, Barbarossa had taken to the monkey. Mina did not know how her father had gotten the monkey back, and she had never asked, though the little fur ball had been hers for almost a year.
Taking him out of the cage, Mina let him crawl up her arm and come to rest on her shoulder, taking the opportunity to stroll out on deck. It was a dusky twilight, damp with fog, and not many were above deck. It was only a short time before the familiar footsteps came closer.
"Jack knows who you are," she said softly as her father's hands rested on the railing next to hers.
"That doesn't surprise me."
Mina turned her face to him. "He looks a lot like you."
Bootstrap knew she meant Will. "All the worse for him, then." He attempted a smile, though it seemed empty when she looked back out over the water.
"Jack told them."
"Jack doesn't know very much," the captain said carefully.
"He told them who you are. That's enough, isn't it?" She turned all the away around, leaning back with her elbows on the railing as Jack caught a rope and started climbing the rigging. She let him go. "They want to know why you took Will."
He stiffened. "They shouldn't know."
"But if you just worked together –"
"That's now how it works, Willemina," he said sharply. "You know nothing about curses and how they are tied to blood." Straightening, the captain began to slowly walk away. "They won't be told, and I'll never meet him. It's all for the best."
Jack dropped back onto her shoulder when she whistled and she scratched his head. "Best for you, maybe," she said to him, though still talking to her father. "But I already knew the rest of us don't matter." Sighing, she climbed back down the ladder.
* * * * *
"He tried to figure out how to get the cannon off his feet without hurting himself. Not that it hurt him then; but he didn't want to have to go around mangled after he got free. After a bit, because of the water, one of his feet worked its way loose. Still, seven years was long enough for him.
"He broke his leg off below the knee. The moonlight didn't make it down that far or he would have waited until night so it didn't really look like he was hurting himself. Anyway, he's a peg leg now, because there was really no way to reattach the leg below the knee. After making his way to shore he dried himself off, stole some money, and bought a passage to England to find me."
Mina shrugged. "He'd always masqueraded as a proper gentleman there. That's how he won over my mother: with lies and deceit."
"Our mother," Will corrected.
"Both of us are named after him," she continued as though he had not spoken. "It's his vanity, I suppose."
"Our mother," Will repeated, a note of pleading evident in his voice. Elizabeth slipped her hand in his.
"So he went back and got you. Then what?" Jack prompted.
She shrugged again. "Somehow he found the money for a crew and ship. Maybe he'd had it saved somewhere; I don't know. The point is, for three years we pretended as a crew loyal to the king and all that. Then, about a year ago, the curse was lifted. For the first time in years he could stand under the moonlight. That's when we came here."
"But not why."
Mina cocked her head. "We came here because the curse was lifted."
Will took a deep breath. "They say I look like him."
She nodded. "You do. I don't; I look like my mother."
"My mother looked nothing like you." It was hard to tell from his voice whether Will was hurt or resigned.
"No. I'm told she didn't." After a short pause, she continued. "I only saw him once or twice when I was little. The second time was a few weeks before Jack left to find him." The monkey had run to her, chattering, when he heard his name, and she stroked his head as he climbed into her lap and curled up in the crook of her knee.
"You're the same age as I am, then?"
"A few months younger, yes."
They looked at each other a long while, her eyes less piercing than usual, his harder.
Elizabeth sighed, grabbing one of the dowels. "Well, since you're not going to tell us anything else right now, we might as well do something worthwhile."
Mina smiled. It had been her suggestion to Jack that eventually worked its way to Will that made Will put a stop to the goody-goody act. "Sure. Let's begin."