The next morning, Will woke early and went to the smithy long before he usually did, mindful of the fact that old widow Harrison was visiting her pregnant niece, and opening shop would take far longer without her there. He even managed to get out without very much damage to his sleep, either, as this was about the time the cat would wake one or both of them up, demanding scratches and milk.
The poor little thing looked almost disappointed that Will was already awake, actually.
So it was that, all things considered, Will, in the manner of all die-hard optimists, was almost looking forward to being the first one in the smithy for the first time in a year. He actually whistled a little as he walked to the smithy, imagining what it would be like to be the only one in the shop again.
It was really too bad that someone was already there by the time he had arrived.
"Will, m'boy! Good t' see y' 'gain!"
To say that he was stunned would be a gross understatement, possibly bordering on a felony in certain areas of the world. "Shocked" wouldn't even come close. "Completely, goddamn, fucking, bloody stupefied" might be closer to the truth—but only a little. Jack Sparrow, the Jack Sparrow, stood, quite as boldly as you please, right in the middle of Will's smithy.
Well … not so much the actual middle, really. A bit to the left of the middle, if anything, and farther up—as a matter of fact, the middle middle of the smithy was actually over there, next to that small sword rack and in front of the donkey manger. But that didn't matter. The location of Jack was of no consequence, except that it gave credibility to the existence of Jack.
Jack brushed by him, and Will turned to follow his movement, like a mindless … thing. That turns. And has no mind. And muscular problems that result in a complete inability to close the jaw.
Finally, he managed to get out a faint "W-wha—? How—"
"How's not th' question ye be wantin' t' be askin', m'boy." Jack gave him a look, laden with double meaning and positively swimming with little brown bits of questionable origin – much like the rest of him, actually. "Nor's what, really … well, come t' think, what jus' might do. 'Pends on what'cha meaning t' put after it, it does, but yeah, what could do it. Great word, what. Nice 'n flexible-like."
By this point Will wasn't sure if he wanted to hug Jack for being alive, yell at him for being in Port Royale, or gag him and leave him tied up in a corner to deal with later. He was leaning away from the latter, slightly for moral reasons, but mostly because he knew that Jack would manage to get out of the ropes within the hour.
"Jack …" Will sighed, and decided he might as well play along. "Then why are you here, Jack?"
Jack's eyes brightened, and he showed off his gold-capped smile to its fullest extent. "Ah! Now there's the question ye be wantin' t' be asking, mate! Well, y'see, one day I was jus' sailin' along, mindin' m' own business, when, outta nowhere, I get t' urge t' check up on y' two ne . . . nur . . . nelly . . . married folks. An'" he spread his arms, gesturing even more extravagantly than normal, "'ere I be. Funny 'ow these things work out, innit?" Another incorrigible smile that was not so much "innocent" as "Ha'n't done anythin' bad lately, luv, honest!"
Will stared at Jack for an unrecorded amount of time, then slowly raised an eyebrow. "Jack?"
"Yes, luv?" The pirate in question had taken the moment to begin to wander around the smithy, and was poking at the rack that held some of Will's newest swords.
"That's bullshit. And don't touch that one – it's a special order, and I'll have to spend hours polishing it back to normal if you get your grubby hands all over it."
Jack snatched his be-ringed (and very dirty) hands away from the sword they had been creeping to and gave Will an injured look.
"Tha's cold, mate. I'll have y' know that it rained on me not yest'dy. 'M perfectly clean." At Will's disbelieving look, he shuffled for a bit, and then amended, "Alrigh', it was a week." A raised eyebrow. "Two." A second eyebrow was added to the first, and Jack snapped. "Fine! I ha'n't 'ad a bath inna mont', y' 'appy now?"
"No," Will responded calmly. "Because you still haven't told me why you're here, Jack." His eyes narrowed in a mix of suspicion and alarm. "Is it about Elizabeth?"
Jack winced, which was a fairly telling answer to Will, and swung the mix from suspicion-and-a-little-worry to full-fledged alarm.
"Well . . ." the pirate hedged. "Yes n' no."
"Yes. And. No?!?" In a few minutes, Will thought, he would be shrieking, and then there would just be no help for it.
"Mos'ly yes," Jack admitted with a cough and shuffle. "'Ere . . ." he shuffled through his many-pocketed coat for a bit before pulling out a thick white letter, only slightly grubby due to extended contact with Jack. The seal looked untampered-with to Will but, knowing Jack, it probably wasn't. "'Ave a lookit this, mate. See iffn y' can make sense of it."
Will stared at the letter for quite awhile, and its thick white paper and the elegant calligraphy written on it, but he had to admit that all he saw was the name. Eventually, after Jack had coughed a few times, Will looked up, and put the letter away, to Jack's obvious surprise.
"Ain't y' gonna look at it, mate?"
"Yes," Will replied, far too calmly for Jack's ease of mind. "But I am going to look at it with Elizabeth, and you are coming with me." Judging by the faint panic that crossed his face, Jack wasn't very enthusiastic about that idea.
"Well now, luv, I don' rightly see why I need t' come . . . it is, after'll, obvios'ly a fam'ly matter, and I ain't really part o' t' family 'ere, so I don' really—" He had been slowly creeping to the door during this rambling monologue, and had just reached back to the doorhandle . . .
Thunk.
Jack stared at the sword quivering an inch from his hand, and wondered how he could have ever forgotten about that little trick.
"Jack," Will said firmly, his tone broking no argument. "Consider yourself adopted."
Jack sighed, wondered at the odds that the lad would still have his aversion to dirty fighting, and resigned himself to running away at the earliest available opportunity – which, unfortunately, was not this one.
"Yessir."
"Good." Will reached for a little wooden sign with the words "CLOSED FOR SPECIAL BUSINESS," hung it in the window, and then gestured for Jack to go on with the sword he had easily pulled from the door. "After you, Jack."
I am so sorry you guys. It's been . . . what, almost a year? So so sorry. Words cannot express. So so so sorry. ::cries:: (And hopefully the reviewers I am replying to stumble over this story again
Lord Lanceahlot: If you still remember this story exists, I love you.
Faery: Words do not exist to tell you how happy I was that you reviewed, but that's okay, because at least half of what I write is for you anyways. :P
Kuramasgirl556/Nikki: O.o You have a lot of fics. But I will try to read all the ones in fandoms I recognize -- I'll warn you though, I'm a horrible reviewer. It's like pulling teeth.
Amarous Thoughts: Well, here is the next chapter . . . 8 . . . months . . . after you reviewed . . . . Sorrysorrysorry.
Angelic Evility: You'll find that I'm always hard on myself . :D Sorry about the huge delay in updating -- this is so far from normal for me.
psychotermite: I am so so so sorry for stopping for so long. I wish you would have bugged me to keep writing, I really do -- I have so many freaking stories to write, that if people don't bug me about one, it won't get written. .