Kin
Part Six : In Which Will Realizes That He Really Wasn't the Favourite
by : epiphanies
Her eyes fluttered open and she gaped at her surroundings. She knew immediately that she was on a ship - the Black Pearl, likely. She hadn't been on a ship since before she could remember, and the swaying made her stomach turn.
She threw the covers off of her to find her still wearing her dressing gown from - what time was it? What date? Had she slept a night through? An entire day?
"Hello?" she called out meekly, and a man appeared at the window of her doorway. He knocked and entered, allowing in a ray of brilliant sunlight, smiling broadly.
"Name's Richard Gibbs, Miss Desdemona. Who is it you be callin' for?"
She attempted a smile, "Elizabeth? Will? Jack?"
"All of 'em?"
She sighed in relief, "No, better make it..." she remembered the evening before, "make it Will, please."
"Aye, and you just get back in bed. Miss Elizabeth ordered me to make sure you got your rest."
"I wouldn't want to get you in trouble," she sat down on the considerably soft mattress, showing her obedience, "If you'll only get Will here. I need to speak with him."
"Are you needing anythin', anythin' else?" Gibbs smiled crookedly, and she felt a welt of affection for this stranger, "No, I'll be fine, thank you."
"Your welcome," he nodded and left.
She bit her lip. Were all pirates such gentlemen? She'd never known any, other than Jack and her father. All of the men in Tortuga fancied themselves pirates, of course, living on a tiny island surrounded by water, but none of them were actual pirates, true scallywags. Dirty blighters, perhaps, but not pirates in any way, shape or form.
"Desdemona, are you alright?"
Will had entered, looking worried. She smiled reassuringly, "I'm fine, thank you, Will. Although, I must say, I do not remember the crossing from England, and this ship moves something awful. Is that quite normal?"
"We're steady at the moment," admitted Will, sitting down beside her, and she laughed.
"Figures that a daughter of a pirate knows nothing of the trade."
"Oh, never fear," Will's eyes twinkled, "I knew nothing of it either, before Jack."
"You learned a lot from Jack, did you not? He taught you about my - about our - father, and the sea-"
"Jack taught me more than I wish to know," Will looked out the window at the turquoise sea, "He taught me the truth. He taught me that everything I'd been told as a child was wrong, that piracy could sometimes be good. He taught me about oppourtunities, something I might never have risked if I had never met him."
"You mean Elizabeth," Desdemona said softly, "You never would have had the courage to court her, if not for-"
Her eyes grew wide as the ship lurched slightly, and she placed a hand over her mouth.
"Oh, oh," flinched Will apologetically, "That's Jack for you, trying to wildly conquer the sea with every wave, oh, I'm sorry!"
The nausea passed and Desdemona smiled weakly, slowly lowering her hand, "It's quite all right, Will. I know how rambunctious Jack can be, or , at least, I can believe everything I've been told. After all, he's never been anything but a gentleman in my presence."
"He must really love you," Will smiled at her, and she looked at her hands.
"I do love him, you know," she said quietly, "Not in any fantastical way, just in a small way, that's enormous all the same. I love the way he moves his hands, and ties his shirts, and the way he acts drunk but never sloshes his rum down his front. I love the way his every word comes out like a new breath, like he's thinking of what he's saying after he says it. Just little things, you know? He's a kind of silly man, in his way."
Will chuckled, "I...I must agree. Though you cannot let another soul hear it, I have a rather infectious affection for Jack too, sometimes."
"Only sometimes?"
"When he's not slurring his words at my lady or offering my life for a ship," Will nodded, "He's alright, I suppose."
"He's a little bit like our father, you know. Little things, I mean."
"How? Tell me," Will's eyes were pleading, and she felt a sad pang. Had their father even known about Will?
"Well," she started, remembering back to the last time she'd seen him, "You know how Jack has this little finger lift? He'll raise his index finger when he makes a point?"
Will nodded, and she smiled, "They both did that. They both said "Aye, you look lovelier than the last time we saw yeh" and "Here's our Desdemona, prettier than that there settin' sun." They both had an odd fascination for large hats...one summer, when I knew that they'd both be coming to visit soon, I made two hats from some old dresses I had. They were pink and flowery. They simply adored them...well, I suppose they didn't, but they pretended to."
Will looked out the window. He liked hearing everything, all of the stories, all of the news...and yet, it made him bitter. He was bitter that this woman, sitting in front of him, had known their father, loved their father, had their father for five years longer than he had. How was it fair that she'd been given the chance to have a parent, while Will had been left on a ship headed for the Caribbean, not knowing anybody or anything about his parentage? Yes, he'd known his father's name, and that he'd been, what the orphanage had called, a "merchant sailor." And, directly before the crossing from England, he'd been sent an envelope with only his name, encasing the accursed last piece of the Aztec gold, Cortes' gold, that had enslaved his father's mates until a mere few months before.
"Will...did you ever...I mean to say...did you hear from our father? Ever?"
"Only when I was sent a present."
She touched his hand, "Will?"
"What?" he said, his voice rather harsher than he'd intended. He took a deep breath, "What?"
"I'm sincerely sorry that you never met him. He was a good man."
"A good man. Like Jack." said Will bitterly, and Desdemona flinched.
"I thought you had affection for-"
"Yes, well, I said I do sometimes. I feel quite hard toward him at the moment."
"Why? Why, Will?"
"Because he knew my father!" Will shouted, "He knew my father and he did nothing to prevent his death. Jack knew about me, Desdemona. He knew about me as he knew about you, and he never did anything about me. It was only that you were his little girl, and you were sickly! He never knew that my mother died in childbirth, that I was in an orphanage until somebody on Tortuga sent for me-"
He stopped dead. Desdemona gasped in her own realization.
"Somebody on this island sent for you? That is why you made the crossing from England?"
Will's face was falling steadily, "He sent for me. I never knew who it was, but it must have been him. He must have known after all, and wanted to meet me."
"And when your ship never arrived-"
"He thought me dead."
Will shivered. The thought that his father had actually sent for him, had actually intended on knowing him, as a son, came as a large and fascinating shock. Had Jack known about it? Why had he never said anything?
Will sat with Desdemona for a good part of the afternoon, speaking of Port Royal and of the wedding.
Jack wiped his forehead with his hat as he stepped foot onto the island of Tortuga for the first time in nearly three weeks. He knew what he had to do, the first item of business, even before settling in at a tavern to take advantage of the cheap rum and rampant wenches - or was it the other way around?
He had a letter to send. An old friend had procrastinated far too long, and so Jack felt obliged to step in.
He swaggered jauntily to the southern docks, and patted on the shoulder a hefty man wearing a ridiculously feathered hat - of course, the reason Jack had picked him out, after all, you can't just tap anybody on the shoulder, naught most of all in Tortuga.
The man whirled around, "Can I help you?" he sneered.
Jack smiled charismatically, "Why yes, thanks for asking. What I need is this here letter," he pointed to the scraggly piece of parchment in his hand, "to be brought to this here lady," he pointed at the name at the top of the parchment, "as soon as you bloody well can. Then, when you come back from your little escapade in London, you bring with you the certain good that is desired in this here letter, savvy?"
"And what wages do you suppose I'll be given for the service and the extra loot?" queried the man.
Jack gazed insipidly at his own fingernails, "Well, how bout's seven shillings now," he placed the silver in the man's hand, "and a brand new hat when you get back, aye?"
"This is a brand new hat," the man glared at Jack, who merely raised his eyebrows.
"Aye, but it won't be brand new after the journey of harsh winds and rough waters, now will it, mate?"
The man raised his own eyebrows, and Jack held out his hand.
"Do we have an accord?"
"We do, dear fellow. We do."
They shook hands, and as Jack sauntered off of the dock, he looked out at the moonless sky above him and watched as the ship sailed away out of his sight.
"William, you'd better be thanking me," he muttered, then, turning on his heel, marched off to the nearest tavern, reminding himself to visit the other Turner offspring first thing in the morning.
A/N - What do you think? I like the longer chapters with the glances at the past better, do you not all? I don't know when I'm going to finish this, or exactly how, but this is what the story is going to be. LoL. I'm going with the flow. What says you all, aye? *grins and falls over due to the ultrahotness of Johnny Depp in kohl.*