Dusky twilight fell soft across the little island, the moon illuminating the people as they spun tales and sang songs for one another's entertainment. It was the first real celebration they had had since joining the island, the second birthday of one Matthew Turner, and the whole village had turned out to wish him the best. Out along the beaches, lovers walked together, holding hands, kissing under the stars, completely free to feel as they wanted to feel and not bound by the laws of the society they had been born into. The ocean lapped gently at the shoreline, soothing those who wished to sleep with her calming song.

James leant back in the dim light, his hands finding purchase on the warm sand of the beach as Laura thumped down beside him, wriggling her bare toes in the same sands. He smiled affectionately at her, seeing so many changes in his lovely wife, changes that he felt were for the better. He had found her beautiful in the confines of Port Royale, reined in by social etiquette and expectations of how she should act and look, but here, now, with her slender figure untouched by the bones of a corset and her long dark hair left loose to flow down her back, James knew she was the most breath-taking vision of beauty he could ever wish to see. Her laughter came more easily, in response to words and acts that she found funny, not that others felt she should be amused by.

Unfettered by society, she had thrown herself into the daily routine of the island with enthusiasm, unafraid to admit that she had never washed a shirt before, or swept a floor, and so willing to learn that the women had taken her under their wing as they had Marin only a couple of months before. For himself, he found it wonderful to be just one of the men once again, working alongside men like Solomon and Gibbs again as they coaxed a village from the piles of building materials that littered the island. He felt more himself here, on this island, than he had ever had the chance to before. It would be a great shame when they had to return to the enclosed life that Port Royale held for them.

She leant sideways, her hair tumbling across his chest and back as her head rested against his shoulder. James lifted an arm to wrap about her, thwarted in his intention when she stood up again, moving towards the water, unaware that her husband wanted to show her some affection. He rose to his feet, his toes digging into the sand as he moved to embrace her from behind, capturing his thoughtful wife in his arms as she stared out, across the Caribbean.

'I love you,' he murmured, kissing her cheeks softly, still surprised at how easily such displays of affection came to him.

Laura smiled gently, leaning back into his arms as his cheek slipped against hers. There was a laugh from further down the shoreline, and they both glanced up, to grin in recognition of the two figures dancing clumsily together in the moonlight. No one could ever mistake the hat and dreadlocks for anyone other than Jack Sparrow, and no one would dare to think that the woman in his arms was anyone other than his Marin. They were twirling about the sands together, stumbling and laughing in the carefree manner James had come to expect of his cousin and her husband. And the manner he had found himself copying in the months they had been here.

'It's good to hear them laugh,' Laura murmured quietly. 'Jack doesn't laugh enough.'

James sighed softly, understanding his friend's melancholy perhaps better than Marin herself.

'That's because he's on land, love,' he told her, his voice as soft as the breeze that pulled at her hair. 'Jack Sparrow is a rover at heart, he wasn't meant to settle down on land. The reason he doesn't laugh as often as you think he should is because he is not as happy as he appears with this life. But he doesn't want to let Marin down by becoming moody and useless ashore.'

Laura was silent, taking this explanation in carefully before she spoke again.

'Then why are they still ashore?' she asked him. 'Marin must know her husband's heart is at sea.'

'She does,' James said ruefully. 'But Jack won't have Beth on board the Pearl until she's a year old. Until then, one of them will have to be with her constantly, and on board a ship that's nigh impossible.'

Laura frowned, realising that Marin's news for Jack would set their plans back another year. So that was why she was waiting for her opportune moment. James pulled her back against him, carefully kneeling so she was cradled in his arms on the sand. They sat together for long moments, listening to the laughter of their friends as it died away, and the sounds of the village as they faded softly into the background.

'Why don't we stay here?' James said suddenly, his voice firm as he spoke, startling his young wife from her thoughts.

Laura blinked, craning her neck to look him in the eye.

'Do you really mean that?' she asked softly, trying to curb the eager joy that had begun to pound through her.

James smiled down at her, glad to see that she, too, felt no pressing need to return to Port Royale.

'There's no life but that of command in the Navy for me there,' he told her, needing to explain despite her obvious willingness. 'And I have no desire for such a life any longer. I want to be near family, to have a life where I am close to you, wherever I am. I want to be myself, with no uniform or rank to hide behind.'

'I know,' she murmured, turning to lean back into his embrace once again. 'I hate the courtesies and etiquette of society, having to say the right thing and look the right way, always walking the line between being accepted or being outcast. I want to stay here, so very much, and be a wife to you the way a woman should be.'

James' arms tightened around her, hearing his longing for a simple life echoed in her words. He dropped a tender kiss at her temple, resting his head against hers as she sighed softly.

'Then here we stay, love,' he promised softly, feeling the weight of years of command and responsibility suddenly lift.

Before she could reply, Laura was interrupted by a startled exclamation from the other couple who were sharing the moonlight.

'You're WHAT?'

Both she and James looked up to see Marin gesturing animatedly at her husband as he stared at her from a few metres away. Laura felt her heart freeze for a moment, certain that Jack would be angry with his wife for her unexpected revelation. Then his hand ventured towards Marin, fingers tentatively touching her waistline as he raised his eyes to hers, and as the commodore and his wife watched, he swept her up in his arms, kissing her deeply under the stars. James felt his wife relax, wondering why she had been so suddenly uptight in the first place.

'I suppose you know what that was about, don't you?' he asked her, sighing when she nodded in silence. 'Is there any possibility of my knowing?'

There was a short pause, somehow fraught with some intense emotion James could not identify. When Laura spoke, her voice was tight, as though she were concealing something from him that he was not to know.

'Marin's expecting another child,' she told him shortly, drawing in a deep breath as he grinned to himself in the darkness.

He was about to speak when a shudder went through the young woman in his arms, punctuated by softly expelled breaths. He listened closer, and realised to his shock that his wife was crying.

'Laura?' he ventured, gently turning her to face him. 'Darling, what's wrong?'

Tears sparkled in the moonlight as they ran down her cheeks. She raised her hands to her face, trying to hide her tears from her husband, but he held them in his own, lifting her chin to look into her eyes. The sorrow within was heart-breaking to behold.

'Why couldn't it have been me?' she whispered brokenly. 'I've tried everything I can think of. Why can't I give you a child?'

James felt as though he had been punched in the gut. He drew her against his chest, rocking her gently as she sobbed. He'd had no idea she was trying for a baby, or that her efforts were slowly breaking her heart as they appeared to be. Her hands clutched at his shirt as she sobbed, his palm running soft across her hair in the growing darkness.

Slowly the tears dried up, and Laura raised her eyes to meet his, her expression one of alarm and regret.

'I'm sorry,' she began, but he cut her off.

'Darling, there is nothing for you to be sorry for,' he told her. 'I had no idea you wanted a baby so much. If anyone is to blame, it is me for not noticing that you needed me to care.'

Laura shook her head vehemently, grasping his shirt in her fists.

'No, you can't blame yourself,' she insisted. 'And it's not that I particularly want a child, but it's my duty as your wife to provide you with an heir. I just don't understand how Marin can find herself expecting a second child when I have yet to conceive once.'

James' expression darkened for a split second on hearing one of the words he most hated slipping from his wife's innocent lips.

'Hang duty,' he hissed, calming himself when she jerked back in alarm. 'If I had wanted only an heir, I would have married a woman who had proved herself to be fertile. I want you. I love you, Laura, I don't care if we have to wait for children. You have no duty to me at all. Duty is what made me who I was before I met Marin and you, and I have no desire to see it do the same to you. Just be my wife, love, and leave the children to the one who decides all this.'

Laura stared at him, surprised beyond words at his insistence. She would never have believed that he could feel so strongly about anything so domestic as children. A hesitant smile lit up her face as he leant down to kiss her gently.

'Besides,' he murmured. 'Would you really want to have a child so young as Beth with another on the way?'

His wicked smile did what he had hoped it would. A giggle erupted from his forlorn wife, wiping away the traces of unhappiness as she laughed at the thought of the life Marin and Jack had ahead of them. James smiled gently, pleased he had set his wife's mind at rest. The last thing he needed was grief now, especially in light of Jack's plans for the coming week.

'Marin wanted to know if you would come with us when we sail in two days' time,' he asked suddenly, realising that he had better ask this question before he forgot completely.

Laura frowned, slightly confused.

'Where are you going?' she asked him.

James sighed, trying to ignore the memories of what he had been doing this time last year, or more importantly, who had been bullying them into doing it. Marin would have a hard time of it this coming week, he knew.

'Just off the headland of Port Royale,' he told his wife. 'There's something we have to do.'

'What is it?' Laura pressed him, and he couldn't blame her for being curious. She hadn't even been in the Caribbean when everything had blown up in his family's face.

'You've heard us talk of Elias Fitzpatrick, haven't you, and the battle in which he died?' he said softly, unable to face his wife's curious expression as the memory of that terrible night came flooding back. 'That was two years ago, come this week. We forgot to remember him last year, so we decided to do so this year, if only for Marin's sake.'

Laura was touched by the sorrow in her husband's voice. Not even Elizabeth's death had affected him like this. She reached out to cup his cheek.

'He must have been a very special man,' she said quietly.

James tore his gaze from the ocean to look down at her with disquieting eyes.

'He was one of the best you could have ever met,' he told her, speaking against the lump that rose in his throat.

She watched him for a long moment, holding his gaze with all the gentle love and understanding she could muster, while not quite knowing how a pirate such as the man they had described to her could mean so much to her friends and family. But he had, and if this was how they planned to remember him, then she would not stand in their way.

'No,' she said gently. 'I won't go. It's for those of you who knew him and remember him. I knew nothing of the man but that he was my friend's guardian, and he knew nothing of me. It isn't right that I should be present where Elizabeth cannot.'

James felt his heart constrict on hearing her say such words that must have cost her a great deal of pain. She had seen through Marin's request for her with ease, and in a way he was glad. He had no wish for her to witness the grief that Elias' death had caused, even in retrospect, and understood her reluctance. He smiled and nodded, kissing her palm where it lay against his cheek.

'Thank you,' he murmured, drawing her back into his arms. Laura sighed contentedly, smiling as he kissed her hair. This was how she wished her life to be, simple and uncomplicated, with time to spare to sit with her beloved husband beneath the Caribbean twilight.