Two

- This is all I ever wanted -

Will Turner blinked, unable to remember who he was in that dizzying moment between sleep and wakefulness. In that instance of disorientation, he had the oddest feeling that he was not where he was supposed to be either. Shouldn't the deck be rolling as it usually did on the ocean? His bunk should be as hard as plank and most of all, there shouldn't be soft feminine warmth lying next to him, smelling of lavender.

Will blinked again and the moment passed. Now fully awake, he remembered where he was. In his marriage bed with his wife of one year, in the modest house they had built near to the Governor's.

He turned his head and a soft smile curved his lips as he regarded his sleeping wife. Even now, one year into their marriage, Will still could not believe that this was real, that Elizabeth, daughter of the Governor, not only returned his love but also consented to marry him, a simple blacksmith.

There was not a single day that went by that Will did not count himself a very, very lucky man.

Placing a gentle kiss on her crown of hair, Will carefully extricated himself from her cuddling grasp. Elizabeth mumbled and shifted in complaint but a gentle touch soon soothed her back into her slumber. Stepping slowly and quietly, Will crossed the bedroom and let himself out onto the balcony.

At this early hour of the morning, Port Royal was still and quiet. All law-abiding citizens were in bed, save for those whose duty was to keep watch during the night. From his balcony, Will had a clear view of the ocean. It was one of the reasons why they chose this spot to build their home.

Will took a deep breath, savoring the salty tang of the air. For a heartbeat, he thought he could feel a rolling deck under his feet and the cool spray of the sea on his cheeks before the sensations dissipated like a passing breath. Though he admitted that it ran in his blood, the ocean hardly ever called him as strongly as it did to Jack and apparently to his father too.

Jack was born to the sea, a strange – okay, eccentric – fey creature that knew the ways of the waters better than he did the land. And his father, well, obviously the sea called to him more than his wife and son did, or his mother wouldn't have to raise Will by herself.

Not for the first time, Will wondered if his father had loved him. Was his birth the result of a casual dalliance, as all sailors, pirates or not, were wont to do when in port. Did his father woo his mother properly, or did he seduce her and Will was conceived in a moment of indiscretion? He never knew, for his mother would only tell him about how kind and handsome his father was, and repeatedly told him how his father eked out a living as a respectable sailor (although he knew that to be a lie now). His mother never told him how they had met, though Will remembered asking a couple of times.

There was so much he didn't know about his father; he could barely remember how he looked like. Jack told him once he was the spitting image of his father, but it wasn't good enough. He didn't know what kind of man his father was. A good man, he was told, but what else?

He thought back to the dream he just had. It was so vivid, so real. He had been someone else in that dream, his father to be exact. And he had felt the eagerness of a father craving news of his faraway family.

Will frowned. Did a dream like that mean anything? He shook his head, dismissing the thought. Unlike Jack, he had his feet firmly on the ground, figuratively speaking of course. He was a sensible young man, albeit prone to 'rash and stupid actions' as Jack call it, but he was not about to go chasing after the horizon when all he wanted was right here, in the bedroom with him.

A dream was just a dream, a product of his wishful yearning of a father he remembered nothing of and who was dead. There was no point in wondering what could have been. As the parrot would say, 'dead man tells no tales'.

Turning his back on the ocean, Will reentered his bedroom, returning to his wife and to his life.

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